Missouri School of Journalism students win 1 national, 6 regional SPJ Mark of Excellence Awards
COLUMBIA, Mo. (May 30, 2025) — Students at Vox Magazine and NPR-member station KBIA-FM, two of the Missouri School of Journalism’s professional news outlets, have won a total of six regional Mark of Excellence Awards from the Society of Professional Journalists (SPJ). Master’s student Aminah Jenkins also earned a national Mark of Excellence award for a report on local crime statistics for KBIA.
The awards honor a wide range of work, including multimedia journalism, photojournalism, website design, in-depth audio reporting and more. Vox won five Mark of Excellence Awards, while KBIA earned both a regional and national award for Jenkins’ story.
“These awards are a reminder that students at the School of Journalism not only work in professional settings but produce community reporting that is worthy of national recognition,” said David Kurpius, dean of the School. “Congratulations to Vox and KBIA on this prestigious acknowledgment of their hard work.”
Three of Vox’s honors — Best Ongoing Student Magazine, Best Affiliated Web Site and Best Use of Multimedia — recognizing the magazine’s entire staff. The other two honored different aspects of a single story: “All the world’s a stage — literally,” which profiles the leader of a local theater company that stages its productions in nontraditional settings.
Its writer, Grace Burwell — who graduated this month with her bachelor’s degree in journalism — won for Arts/Entertainment/Fashion Journalism. Demonstrating the benefits of becoming immersed in the mid-Missouri community through the School’s Missouri News Network of professional newsrooms, she came up with the idea for the story after working another project that boosted her familiarity with women in the local arts and culture scene.
The story may have been entertaining to write, but, as it turned out, there was entertainment to be found throughout the reporting process.
“One thing that was really cool for me was getting to watch some of the performances,” said Burwell, who is headed to Dubuque, Iowa, post-graduation to write for local newspaper the Telegraph Herald. “That really made the story more rich and fun to write.”
But beyond the writing, the story also stood out for its images, which featured the story’s subject dressed in theatrical costumes at various locations around Columbia. The images were shot by fellow May graduate Caleigh Christy and earned her a win in the Feature Photography category.
Christy said the award feels especially good because she labored over these particular images, taking and retaking them with different angles and lighting.
“This is a big award, but it’s also super exciting because I really enjoyed that photo shoot and thought it was super fun,” Christy said. “I’m really happy that it could get recognized, because it was definitely one of my favorite projects during the summer.”
The dual awards for the story draw attention to the variety of skills on display from students at Vox, but Heather Isherwood, the magazine’s editorial director, said the additional team awards showcase the same extensive array of talent.
I love that these winners reflect the breadth of what students do at Vox,” Isherwood said. “There’s an award for our coverage of the city’s culture, for an innovative multimedia series aimed at first-time voters and for our amazing photography. And the best magazine and best website awards show the high caliber of work that’s in our magazine monthly and on our website daily.”
In the realm of audio journalism, Jenkins earned a national and regional award for Radio In-Depth Reporting. Her story, “Is Columbia’s crime spiking? Police say yes, numbers say no,” took a data-driven approach to examining crime trends in the local community.
Stan Jastrzebski, KBIA’s news director, called the story a “great example of the kind of service-oriented journalism that public media does best — giving citizens new ways to make sense of complicated issues.”
Jenkins, who had only just begun producing radio content at the time and is now interested in pursuing the medium as a career, viewed the story in much the same way as her news director.
“The way I’ve always viewed it is even if I never win another journalism award, as long as I feel confident in the pieces I’m putting out and the impact they have in the community, that is reward enough,” she said. “As someone who wants to go into local journalism, I feel like that’s a reality a lot of local journalists have. It’s very impact driven.”
Two additional KBIA stories were noted as finalists: “Honor dorms offer flexibility, family connection at Algoa Correctional Center” by junior Sophia Anderson and “Volunteers gather signatures to put abortion rights on the ballot in Missouri, but face challenges” by Meghan Lee, BJ ’24, and junior Lilley Halloran.
Updated: May 30, 2025