Bernard Kilgore Memorial Scholarship

The family of Bernard Kilgore, former chairman of the board of Dow Jones and Company, Inc., has created a memorial scholarship fund in his name with the New Jersey Press Foundation.

An annual scholarship of $5,000 will be awarded by the Foundation to the New Jersey High School Journalist of the Year in a competition sponsored by the Garden State Scholastic Press Association.

Selection criteria include the intent to major in journalism in college.

Nominations will be made by high school journalism teachers and school newspaper advisers whose schools are members of GSSPA. Recommendations from professional newspaper editors is encouraged.

The competition will be judged by editors of newspapers that are members of the New Jersey Press Association.

The scholarship check of $5,000 will be issued after the winner provides the GSSPA with a copy of the acceptance letter from the college to which he or she will attend. Since the GSSPA is an affiliate of the Journalism Education Association, the winner will also become JEA’s New Jersey Journalist of the Year, and the portfolio will be entered into the national competition for the JEA National Journalist of the Year.

The winner of the award is announced at the Spring Advisers’ Conference.

The faculty adviser should choose one student journalist who best qualifies to meet the standards set forth under the headings of Eligibility Requirements and Criteria. Nominee and adviser then prepare a portfolio of the student’s best work.

The Kilgore Scholarship is possible because of gifts to the New Jersey Newspaper Foundation from the Kilgore family, The Princeton Packet, the Dow Jones Foundation and friends following the selection of Bernard Kilgore as the Business Journalist of the Century in March 2000.

Bernard Kilgore was the dominant figure at The Wall Street Journal and its parent corporation, Dow Jones and Co., Inc., for more than a quarter of a century. He is credited with changing the Journal from a small financial newspaper to the nation’s only national daily at the time of his death in 1967. He was 59 years old.

He purchased The Princeton Packet in 1955, just as The Wall Street Journal was beginning to become large and successful. He created The National Observer, the nation’s first national weekly newspaper, built up Barron’s financial weekly and expanded the Dow Jones News Service into a world-wide supplier of business and financial news.

Kilgore believed strongly that the newspaper business needed to identify and encourage more talented writers and editors in order to remain strong and profitable. He founded The Newspaper Fund in 1958 to address that concern; one of that foundation’s first programs sent inexperienced high school journalism teachers back to college to study journalism during the summer months.

Eligibility Requirements

The eligibility requirements for the Bernard Kilgore Memorial Scholarship are:

1. Nominee must be a graduating senior with at least a 3.0 average on a 4.0 scale.
2. Nominees must have served at least two years in some capacity in high school journalism.
3. Nominees must demonstrate the intent to study journalism in college and to pursue a career in journalism.
4. The applicant’s adviser must be a member of the GSSPA.
5. Entry must be received by or postmarked by the deadline.

Criteria

All nominees will be judged by the quality of their work in comparison with the other applicants. A successful applicant will exhibit:

1. Versatility (ability to handle a variety of subject areas with equal ability)
2. Responsibility (demonstrate thorough research and ethical reporting)
3. Inquisitiveness (ability to seek out and investigate topics of importance to the high school audience and the community)
4. Skill (produce quality work adeptly and creatively)

In addition to the above qualities, the nominee’s portfolio should also demonstrate a high school career dedicated to student journalism.