Onlookers to a one-car crash call 911 and check on the condition of an unconscious Erica Wilson. She was in the passenger seat of a vehicle driven by David Menchinger. The car spun out while traveling at a high speed and slammed into a stone wall in Bowling Green, Ky., on May 11, 2011. Menchinger fled the scene after attempting to restart the car but was later arrested by Bowling Green police for driving under the influence. (Photo by Christian Randolph)

As Waverly High School’s James Doran (12) was attempting to find an open teammate in the second quarter at Pius X High School in Lincoln, Neb., on Dec. 2, 2010, a bleacher full of the opposing team’s fans took advantage of their home court to distract the player. Pius X won the game 72-55. (Photo by Christian Randolph)

Blind in one eye, Roger “Pimp Baby” Grant is unable to work aside from his small business of selling discarded trinkets from around town in his front yard in Bowling Green, Ky., on Nov. 4, 2011. Grant uses the few dollars he is able to gather from his sales to buy cigarettes and beer, a habit which has had him splitting time between the apartment his sister pays the rent for and the local jail where he is frequently incarcerated on charges of public intoxication. Shortly after this photograph was made he sold the jacket he was wearing for $5. (Photo by Christian Randolph)

Lincoln Southwest High School’s MacKenzie Ashton (10), Sarah Faubel (5), Diane Banderas (8), Becky Baxter (4) and Taylor Hansen (7) celebrate their win over Papillion-La Vista High School. Southwest lost the first two games but rallied to win the next two and then took the final match in the first round of the NSAA Class A girls’ volleyball state tournament at the Heartland Events Center in Grand Island, Neb., on Nov. 11, 2010. (Photo by Christian Randolph)

On Oct. 27, 2010, the day before his one year deployment to Afghanistan, Spc. Jason Cromwell comforts his girlfriend Ashley Werst as they prepare to leave Cromwell’s mother, Linda Slosser in Wahoo, Neb. It didn’t get any easier. After several failed attempts to say goodbye and after hearing Slosser’s suggestion that it wasn’t going to get any easier, they still lingered almost another hour and continued to talk. (Photo by Christian Randolph)

Western Kentucky receiver Boe Brand is upended by the Navy defense after a short gain in the third quarter of WKU’s 40-14 loss at Smith Stadium on the Western Kentucky campus in Bowling Green, Ky., on Sept. 9, 2011. (Photo by Christian Randolph)

Husker fans Cody Siefker, left, and Corey Craig take a moment to cool down and take a break at halftime during the game against the Texas Longhorns with UNL trailing 17-3. Craig , who is originally from Nebraska now lives in California and traveled to Lincoln for the game and said, “I’m kind of pissed right now so hopefully things will turn around.” The game was played at Memorial Stadium on the University of Nebraska campus in Lincoln, Neb., on Oct. 16, 2010. (Photo by Christian Randolph)

Grand Forks Red River’s Brenna Nakonechny (10) tags West Fargo’s Kacie Johnson (14) out as she slides into third base at Apollo Field during the 2011 North Dakota State Fastpitch Softball Tournament in Grand Forks, N.D., on June 3, 2011. (Photo by Christian Randolph)

On the first day of “Kids Invent Toys” Day Camp, Toy Factory CEO Trudy Hines shows fourth-grader Carter Yost, left, how tape will improve his gliding paper airplane. Sixth-grader Michael Ryan, conducts his own research in Lincoln, Neb., on June 16, 2011. (Photo by Brynn Anderson)

Bobbie Jones starts to cry as she takes the first steps into her family’s former rental home two days after it was destroyed by fire in Lincoln, Neb., on Aug. 18, 2011. The fire left Bobbie, her husband, his sister and nine of their 10 children living in a hotel for almost two months as they searched for a place big enough to hold them. (Photo by Brynn Anderson)

Adonis, Alieyya and A’iyanna play with Ashani in one of the two hotel rooms their twelve-person family stayed in while at the New Victorian Inn & Suites. The family was in the hotel because their rental home burned in Lincoln, Neb. on Aug. 18, 2011. They were scrunched together for nearly two months while their parents searched for a home big enough to accommodate all of them. (Photo by Brynn Anderson)

Des Moines Acesí player Tyler Nielsen (left) slams into Omaha Rhino’s Zach Undajon during the Cornhusker State Games at Pacific Meadows Park in Omaha, Neb., on Saturday, July 23, 2011. (Photo by Brynn Anderson)

Abemy Kucha collapses and weeps after stopping to look at a photo of her husband Akec Jok Kut, who she said died a war hero protecting her and her four children when they lived in South Sudan. Though Kucha, a Lincoln, Neb., resident, was celebrating Sudanese Independence Day at a march outside the Nebraska State Capitol, she said she remains lonely without him. (Photo by Brynn Anderson)

J.C. Brager catcher James Dugan makes a sliding attempt to catch a pop-up against Fremont on Saturday July 2, 2011at Densmore Park in Lincoln, Neb., J.C. Brager won 11-3. (Photo by Brynn Anderson)

Longtime friends Catherine Jenks and Mel Kurpjuweit, the queen and king of the Pla-Mor Ballroom’s Senior Prom to Remember in Lincoln, Neb., share the first dance on June 22, 2011. The two were crowned king and queen of their high school prom in 1964 as well, more than 50 years earlier. (Photo by Brynn Anderson)

Osler gathered content in Denver and transmitted his pictures and audio back to WKU where Broekema worked on deadline overnight producing multi-media projects that were posted on the AARP web site within hours after the close of each nights activities.

This particular project was noticed by the judges at the NPPA BOP contest and was awarded a 2nd place in the “Unde” category for audio slide shows that documented the road to the White House.

ST. PETERSBURG, FL (March 25, 2009) – Student photojournalist Carl Kiilsgaard of Western Kentucky University has won Cliff Edom’s “New America Award” in the National Press Photographers Association’s Best Of Photojournalism competition today during judging at the contest’s host site, the Poynter Institute for Media Studies.

“Wow,” Kiilsgaard said when he was called with the news. “I was just walking out of class! That’s great!”

Kiilsgaard won the Edom Award for his long-term documentary essay on some families living in Whitesburg, KY. They are the sons and daughters of coal miners and have grown up dealing with the problems of living in impoverished eastern Kentucky, where it is growing more difficult these days to find steady work and to raise their children. Read more ….

Photo by Carl Kiilsgaard, Story by Donald Winslow

Carl Kiilsgaard won the Alexia student competition with a proposal to document poverty in Eastern Kentucky. An image from his winning portfolio is seen above.
Kiilsgaard is a senior history major at Western Kentucky University and is from Corvallis, Oregon. He has interned at Bucks County (Pa.) Times, the Napa (Calif.) Register, and the Palm Beach Post. Carl was one of Getty Images Reportage’s Emerging Talent picks in 2008. Kiilsgaard is awarded a full tuition scholarship to study photojournalism at Syracuse University in London in the Fall of 2009, plus a $1000 cash grant to help produce his project.

Award of Excellence winners are Philip Scott Andrews and Bryan Anselm, both seniors at Western Kentucky University. Each Award of Excellence winner receives a $1600 scholarship that pays part of tuition, fees and living expenses to study photojournalism in London in the fall semester at Syracuse University in London and a $500 cash grant to help produce their proposed stories.

Congratulations to all of you!

Photo by Carl Killsgaard

Congratulations to Philip Andrews for an Award of Excellence in the White House News Photographer Association “Eyes  of History 2009″ photojournalism contest Pictorial category. To view this and see other winners, go to http://www.whnpa.org/contest/eyes2009/stills/pictorial/hm/7.shtml