APSE will again award $1,000 to a journalist from a small news organization to attend its summer conference in the memory of Donn Walden, the former sports editor of the Lewiston Tribune in Idaho. The grant was established last year after Walden, a staunch advocate for APSE, passed away in April 2023 at age 50.
Journalists who work for organizations in Division D for APSE are eligible to apply for this grant. The APSE summer conference will be held June 20-22 in at the Marriott SouthPark in Charlotte, NC.
Lee Horton of the Sun Journal in Lewiston, Maine, was the inaugural winner of the Walden grant and attended last summer’s conference in Las Vegas. Horton said he met Walden at the only other APSE conference he attended, and they used to exchange messages as the sports editors in their respective Lewistons.
“He was a super nice guy, and it was cool to be the first winner,” Horton said.
Horton, the Sun Journal sports editor since 2018, applied for the grant when he read the list of workshops and saw the emphasis on planning and how to prioritize as staffs get smaller. He said he would not have been able to attend the conference without the grant.
This year’s conference will include panels and workshops on AI and automation, audience development, newsletters, event coverage, and managing people from afar. As usual, there will be a career development session with tips on networking, interviewing and resumes, and a “How we did it” session with APSE contest winners.
Horton applied the lessons from the conference right away when he returned to Maine as he prepared to cover one of his biggest events of the year, a short-track race in August. He said his big takeaway from his time in Las Vegas was the importance of making a comprehensive coverage plan far in advance, and putting that plan in action produced “the best week of coverage of that race since I’ve been the sports editor.”
Another highlight of Horton’s trip to the conference was meeting Walden’s wife, Jennifer Snyder-Walden, who was a guest at the awards banquet. “It made it more special to talk to her about how she was doing and how her family was doing,” Horton said.
It was a special night for Jennifer too.
“My time in Vegas with all of you in attendance made me realize how dedicated Donn was to his profession,” she said. “The relationships he created with all of you were pretty special. I will forever be grateful to all of you for letting me be a part of the conference and experience what Donn did when he attended. I would like to wish all of the candidates good luck!”
All you need to do to apply is fill out the following short questionnaire by Tuesday, May 21. The winner will be notified by May 24.
