And the Winners Are . . .

The American Copy Editors Society has awarded its annual scholarships to five students. Here's the news release:


Matthew Dulin
University of Houston

Dulin, as the top candidate, was also named the Aubespin Scholar. That scholarship is named for Merv Aubespin, the former Louisville Courier-Journal editor who is considered the godfather of ACES.

As a Dow Jones intern, Dulin impressed his boot-camp instructors so much that three of them concurred he was the best intern they've had in three years. "It was clear to everyone at the training camp -- interns and faculty alike -- that Matt was the star player," Rick Brunson, associate director of the Center for Editing Excellence at the University of Central Florida, wrote in his letter of recommendation.

Dulin, a senior, completed his internship at the Naples Daily News in Florida. He has also been editor-in-chief, managing editor and news editor of the Daily Cougar, the student paper at the University of Houston. His headlines at the Naples Daily News show a real flair, even on dry news stories, such as "The real toll, officials say, would be time," about the widening of Interstate 75 and a study on toll lanes.

Krysten Chambrot University of Missouri at Columbia Chambrot, a senior, grew up in a Cuban family as a native Spanish speaker, and for her, learning English was a scientific endeavor: "I remember getting excited seeing sentence-diagramming trees." While she was healing from major surgery after a bicycling accident, she stayed engaged by reading up on Bremner, Strunk and White, Walsh, and Truss. Today she helps coach other students as an assistant news editor at the Columbia Missourian, and she spent the summer as a Dow Jones intern at The New York Times.

Megan Crockett Central Michigan University Crockett, a senior, completed a Dow Jones internship at the Detroit Free Press last summer. There she demonstrated what one assigning editor called an "I can solve this problem" attitude and an ability to get things done "with a minimum of drama and angst." She quickly progressed during her 10-week stint on the features copy desk, designing inside pages and even doing some slotting. Back at school, her academic adviser at Central Michigan described Crockett as "driven, diligent and meticulous."

Amy Goldstein City University of New York Goldstein, a graduate student, said in her essay that she was "born to edit." In 1998, she placed fourth in the Scripps-Howard National Spelling Bee. The judges found Goldstein to be a good wordsmith with good news judgment. While interning at the McClatchy-Tribune news service, she lobbied to change the wording that described the day an Israeli conflict began because she knew newspapers disagreed about when the conflict began.

David Ok University of Texas at Arlington Ok, whose family moved to Houston from Seoul, South Korea, in 1989, wrote in his essay that English was difficult for him as a youngster. But the judges agreed after reading his application package that he has mastered it through his dedication and hard work. He began his trek into the newspaper world as a proofreader for the UT student newspaper and almost immediately was given editing duties. In a few short months, he was named copy desk chief and has served as editor-in-chief of the paper. He's also working part time at the Fort Worth Star-Telegram.

---

As the Aubespin scholar, Dulin received $2,500. The other winners each received $1,000. In addition, all winners receive free registration to ACES' 2007 national conference in Miami.

The winners were selected from a group of 18 applicants, judged by five professional copy editors. The judges were Casey Common of the Minneapolis Star-Tribune, Lourdes Fernandez of Newsday, Henry Fuhrmann of the Los Angeles Times, Dory Knight-Ingram of the St. Petersburg Times and Candy Mount of the Belleville (Ill.) News-Democrat.

The winners were selected using these criteria:Commitment to copy editing as a career; work experience in copy editing; abilities in copy editing, as demonstrated by the examples in the application; and the recommendations.

The judges’ recommendations were approved by the board of the ACES Education Foundation. The foundation’s scholarship committee is Bill Cloud of the University of North Carolina, Leslie Guevarra of the San Francisco Chronicle and Kathy Schenck of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel.

The 2006 scholarships bring the total awarded to 34 since 1999. The deadline for the 2007 scholarships is Oct. 15. For more information on the scholarship program, please see the ACES Web site.