Jon Cook, BJ ’93

VML CEO and President Jon Cook, BJ ’93, was named Advertising Professional of the Year at the 2014 American Advertising Awards banquet held Feb. 15 in Kansas City. Cook has been with VML for more than 18 years, where he has seen the agency grow from 30 employees in Kansas City to more than 1,900 … Continued

Jennifer Gutknecht Lynch

What do you do? I am the director of marketing and physician recruiting for a hospital in central Texas. I’m a one-woman show for all aspects of marketing, including advertising, PR, internal communications, media relations and buying, community relations, social media and the like. I started in this position in 2000, and it’s morphed from … Continued

A.J. Schnack, BJ ’90

“Caucus,” a documentary by A.J. Schnack, BJ ’90, opened at Lincoln Center in New York on Nov. 8 and was a Critics Pick in The New York Times and Village Voice. “Caucus” tells the story of the 2011-12 campaign in Iowa as eight Republicans fight to become their party’s standard-bearer and take on Barack Obama. … Continued

Christa Beall Diefenbach, BJ ’95

Christa Beall Diefenbach, BJ ’95, is the new director of marketing for the Kansas City-based national Nonprofit Leadership Alliance (NLA). She will lead initiatives to enhance the organization’s branding initiative and create more awareness for its flagship program, the Certified Nonprofit Professional (CNP) credential.

Jane B. Singer, PhD ’96

Jane B. Singer, PhD ’96, was elected to the board of directors for the Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication as the new chair of the Professional Freedom & Responsibility Committee. Singer is a professor of entrepreneurial journalism at City University in London.

Curtis Jones, MA ’98

Curtis Jones, MA ’98, died Sept. 4, 2013. He served as West Virginia’s assistant athletic director for academic support at the time of his death.

Gordon Young, MA ’90

Gordon Young, MA ’90, writes to say that his first book, “Teardown: Memoir of a Vanishing City,” was just published by the University of California Press. It’s a story about going home again, about trying to reconnect with the place that made you who you are. Young is a freelance journalist and teaches journalism at … Continued

Ingrid Sanders, BJ ’99

Ingrid Sanders, BJ ’99, has created a new tech start up, Popexpert, that makes it easy to meet with experts face-to-face over online video. The company recently announced its angel funding with more than $2 million raised from top investors.

Jason Stallman

By Erin Schell Jason Stallman, BJ ’97, put a lot of faith in his older brother. Jason was a sophomore studying abroad in London, and he asked Scott, a senior at the University of Missouri, to register him for the next semester’s classes. This was in the days before online registration, and students needed to … Continued