Zoe Naylor wins $3,000 Stelzer Stipend Award to kick off journalism career post-graduation
COLUMBIA, Mo. (June 30, 2026) — Zoe Naylor, MA ’26, has won the Richard J. Stelzer Starter Stipend Award, a $3,000 prize for an outstanding graduating master’s student from the Missouri School of Journalism.
Naylor received the honor for writing the most compelling personal statement detailing the life and professional experiences that have prepared her to launch her career. She is just the second recipient of the award, which was established last year with a gift from School of Journalism alum Richard J. Stelzer, MA ’73.
“This award is a great way to give graduating students a boost during the transitional period from school to the workforce,” said David Kurpius, dean of the School of Journalism. “I’m grateful for the alumni support that made this possible.”
Naylor’s essay delved into the philosophy she had applied to her graduate school experience. Rather than focusing exclusively on sharpening her most developed skills as an aspiring features writer, she challenged herself to hone her weaker skills by concentrating on data journalism and investigative reporting.
Embracing that approach, she became an assistant city editor of the Columbia Missourian, the School of Journalism’s community newspaper, and did a bit of reporting for the School’s NPR-member radio station, KBIA-FM. She also reported for the Statehouse Reporting Project, a collaborative network of student-powered statehouse newsrooms led by the School and by Professor Mark Horvit.
“I had a ton of feature writing experience, and I realized I can’t just keep bringing those skills up and then be scared of hard news,” Naylor said. “I can’t be a reporter like that. So I set my sights on local government and built my foundational skills in investigative and data reporting.”
Yet even as someone with a clearly defined mission going into graduate school — where she enrolled after earning her bachelor’s degree in journalism from Middle Tennessee State University in 2024 — she found that she benefited from a variety of sources of support at the School.
Tom Warhover, an associate professor and former executive editor of the Missourian, was an important mentor.
“I loved getting to hear his insight on the very small-scale things that take a story from good to amazing because that’s such a valuable skill, and it’s so hard to pin down,” Naylor said. “Having that very deliberate coaching and teaching was just unbelievably valuable.”
“I had a ton of feature writing experience, and I realized I can’t just keep bringing those skills up and then be scared of hard news I can’t be a reporter like that.”
Zoe Naylor
Fellow students also had her back. Naylor lined up her new job as a local government and features reporter for the Houston Herald on a recommendation from Cayli Yanagida, BJ ’24, MA ’26, who worked at the outlet as a Potter Digital Ambassador for the Reynolds Journalism Institute in 2024.
Then there was her work as a graduate writing tutor at Mizzou’s Writing Center. In this role, she found an opportunity to both give and receive support. In fact, she composed the winning Starter Stipend essay at GradsWrite, a Writing Center event in which graduate students sit together, enjoy snacks and encourage each other as they write.
Bailey Boyd, the assistant director of the Writing Center and coordinator of its Graduate Writing Support program, said Naylor was a fixture at the center’s Monday night writing sessions even before she became a graduate tutor. Her enthusiasm, Boyd added, was evident whether she was benefiting from the center’s programs or helping someone else find the potential in their work.
“She can calm you down while she’s helping you and pump you up at the same time,” Boyd said. “For her to only be here for two years and to have spent so much time with us because she was committed to it — we’ve talked about what a great thing it was that she walked into the Writing Center because we might not have found her otherwise. I’m glad to see her getting this award.”
For her part, Naylor is glad to have chosen the School of Journalism for graduate school. She had originally intended to enroll as an undergraduate, following the advice of her father — David Naylor, who served as a reporter and program host for several NPR affiliate stations — to pursue journalism when she voiced a desire “to do something where I can just read, write and talk to people.”
An undergraduate career at Mizzou didn’t come to fruition, but as a graduate student, she felt buoyed by faculty and students alike.
“The encouragement from faculty is just unbelievable,” she said. “It’s unmatched, and it’s a huge honor to be on the receiving end of that. And when I was working with student editors, it was always a question of, ‘Do you need anything or do you have any questions?’ Never, ‘Do you think you can do this?’ There is just so much trust there in our reporting abilities.”
Updated: June 30, 2026