Each May Press Club of Southwest Florida Welcomes New Scholarship Students

For 2016-17, we have three new scholarship students, who are also honorary members of the Press Club of Southwest Florida.

The two new students who have been awarded the 2016-17 NPC Terrence J. Miller $1,000 Renewable Journalism Scholarship are Tamica Jean-Charles and Jaynie Louise Tice.

 

 

Tamica is a graduating senior from Naples High School. NPC member and former scholarship student Oscar Santiago and I presented Tamica with her scholarship award Monday night, May 23, at the senior awards ceremony at Naples High School. Oscar will also be her NPC mentor. Tamica plans to attend Florida International University in Miami, and will start classes in June. She will major in journalism and minor in political science or sociology.

 

When she was at Naples High School, Tamica was the editor of the school newspaper, senior class secretary, a member of the Golden Eagle Performing Arts Society, where she worked as a stagehand, actor, program manager and playwright. She has also appeared on stage with The Naples Players. She hopes to be able to attend our December luncheon meeting so she can meet some of the NPC members.

 

 

Jaynie graduated from Palmetto Ridge High School in 2013 and will be a senior at Florida Gulf Coast University for 2016-17, majoring in journalism with a minor in psychology. Her NPC mentors are Debbie Meade and Connie Kindsvater. Jaynie worked at Publix and wrote for the Publix newsletter, has published stories in the FGCU Eagle News, and also posts some of her writings on her website, jaynietice.weebly.com. She attended the April 4 NPC-sponsored panel presentation at FGCU, where she had the opportunity to network and meet the panel presenters. One of the presenters, Cammi Clark, Associate Publisher and Executive Editor of èBella Magazine, has subsequently hired Jaynie for a part-time paid internship at èBella this summer. Jaynie has been able to attend a couple of our NPC luncheons this spring and has met some of the NPC members.

 

Villy Satine was awarded the 2016-17 NPC-endowed FGCU Journalism Scholarship; he will be a senior at FGCU and is majoring in journalism. His NPC mentor is Arnold Klinsky. Villy attended the May 16 NPC luncheon and was able to meet many of the NPC members in attendance. He is a hardworking young man who immigrated to the USA from Haiti and manages to be a full-time student at FGCU while also working full-time as a line cook at Chili’s restaurant. He has volunteered for ESPN-3 at FGCU and also volunteers at the Media Civic Center. He’s hoping for a meaningful journalism-oriented internship this summer.

Four other NPC scholarship students are continuing their education.

Melissa Gomez will be a junior at the University of Florida; she has a paid internship this summer in Las Vegas.

 

Ellie Rushing will be a sophomore at Rollins College and is currently in Rwanda teaching English to a village of orphans; she hopes to have a journalism internship in the Naples area when she returns in a few weeks.

Lauren Schoepfer has several more classes at the University of Central Florida before she graduates; this summer she is doing some marketing, learning more about graphic design as an intern, building her portfolio and doing freelance photography.

Kyle Shatto will be a senior at Florida Southern College; this year he produced the FSC News Show and will intern at FSC in the fall, revamping their PR strategies and running their social media.