Heather
Collura, a senior at Roxbury High School in Morris County, has been named the
2004 New Jersey High School Journalist of the Year by the Garden State
Scholastic Press Association and will receive the Bernard Kilgore Memorial
Scholarship from the New Jersey Press Foundation.
She will
receive the $5,000 Kilgore scholarship when she begins her college journalism
studies in September and has been entered in the Journalism Education
Association's competition for the 2004 National High School Journalist of the
Year.
"My
mission is to uphold the First Amendment and help our democratic republic remain
strong and free through a free and objective press," Collura said.
"Through my career in journalism, I hope to make my community, my country
and the world a better place for all." She is the daughter of Larry and
Donna Collura of Landing, N.J.
Collura won
first place in the statewide news writing competition sponsored by GSSPA in 2003
and is recipient of the Al Neuharth Free Spirit Scholarship awarded by The
Freedom Forum. She is editor of her high school newspaper, the Roxbury Review.
A record 23
New Jersey high school students were nominated by their high school journalism
teachers for the 2004 competition.
The family of Bernard Kilgore, former chairman of the board of Dow Jones and Company, Inc., and The Princeton Packet, created this memorial scholarship fund with the New Jersey Press Foundation in 2000 when Kilgore was named Business Journalist of the 20th Century.