Malcolm Key, Sydney Banks, Clara Paulson, Ryan Conley, Kayelyn McCaslin, Megan Cooper and Delaney Holman were honored at the Tennessee Golden Press Card Awards ceremony. Photo courtesy of Jim Tanner.
Seven University of Tennessee at Chattanooga students earned honors at the Tennessee Golden Press Card Awards ceremony on May 21 for reporting, podcasting and multimedia storytelling.
The winners—Malcolm Key, Clara Paulson, Ryan Conley, Delaney Holman, Kayelyn McCaslin, Sydney Banks and Megan Cooper—were all members of either the student newspaper, the University Echo, or the communication capstone course Rising Rock, which highlights local storytelling. In ad
Banks, Paulson and Cooper each won first place for their work. Banks took home the Sports Beat Reporting Award for her work as the Echo’s sports editor. Cooper produced the Rising Rock Media Podcast, which placed first in the podcast category. Paulson received the first-place award for Photojournalism: Best Photographer.
Key, Paulson, Conley, Holman and McCaslin received second-place honors for their story “A Stadium’s Last Stand.” Posted on Rising Rock, the piece examines the history of Chattanooga’s Engel Stadium.
Department of Communication Associate Lecturer Billy Weeks explained how the two outlets work together to develop students’ storytelling abilities.
“We get editors from the Echo that come to Rising Rock and they have an opportunity to work on stories much more in-depth,” Weeks said. “They work on stories with a longer deadline. They’re not turning out news stories every week, which is what student media should do.
“We’re looking at team building and storytelling from not only a writing perspective and a photography perspective, but video and audio and social media, all of that combines together.”
Jim Tanner, lecturer and University Echo faculty adviser, attended the event with students. It was his first time attending the ceremony after serving as the faculty adviser for his second full academic year.
“I really wanted to participate and wanted to be a partner to help celebrate those kids’ work and be a part of that with them,” Tanner said. “I enjoyed it. It was a great experience.”
For rising senior Banks, the Echo and Rising Rock have both provided insight and prepared her for this moment. The communication major and Brock Scholar in the UTC Honors College currently serves as editor-in-chief of the Echo and was a member of Rising Rock.
Before serving as editor-in-chief, she was the sports editor and won the award for that position.
“My award was for best Sports Beat Reporting,” Banks said. “The Echo really prepared me for that. My former editors just gave me feedback, showing me how to be a good sports writer, and really set up my entries for that category for success. A lot of people in Rising Rock are also part of the Echo and work with others in class who are in both.
“It’s just one of those things where you draw skills from your editors in the Echo, but you also draw skills from Rising Rock.”
A 2025 graduate, Cooper received her second Golden Press Card Award in as many years.
Her work through UTC’s online radio station, The Perch, led her to Rising Rock. But the communication major and criminal justice minor said she didn’t want to be a journalist until taking the course with Weeks.
“Rising Rock really gave shape to what kind of reporter I want to be,” Cooper said. “I never really jibed with the breaking news cycle or putting a microphone in a victim’s face. I actually had some people tell me I would never be a good communicator or I chose the wrong major because of that. But Billy was like, ‘No, that’s actually unethical reporting.’ I was like, ‘OK, then I could give it a shot.’
“Being able to tell local people’s stories in Rising Rock gave shape to wanting to share people’s stories in the area I grew up in that maybe have not been heard before.”
Cooper will soon start at WUOT, the Knoxville NPR station, and hopes to work as a full-time journalist.
She said winning the award was a “surprise.”
“I never thought I’d win it once, much less twice, but it was a very big honor,” Cooper said. “I didn’t even know that Billy had put it in. I didn’t know about it until I won. So that was a really fun surprise.”
Banks explained that the awards are the result of hard work through the various student media outlets.
“It just feels incredible,” she said. “Being there, I was so proud of everyone’s hard work. I mean, it feels awesome to win an award. Overall, I just felt a lot of pride in our communication department across both the Echo and Rising Rock.”
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Communication students win big at Tennessee Golden Press Card Awards
