Author: Belinda Clarke
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Saving Calypso
Dawn Church (MSJ78)
Heiress Calypso Swale was about to join the U.S. Olympic Equestrian team when a car crash involving drunken Grieg Washburn, heir to the Washburn Exploration (WashEx) empire, killed her parents. At the time, Larch Swale, Calypso’s father, was COO of WashEx. Her father’s last word to her was “Run,” and Calypso obligingly disappeared with a chunk of his money and a precious patent for a new kind of engine. Five years later, Grieg’s father is dead and it looks like someone’s trying to kill Grieg too. WashEx’s board is offering a reward for Calypso’s return, and no one wants her found more than Grieg.
Yvette Walker, assistant dean at the Gaylord College of Journalism and Mass Communication at the University of Oklahoma, will be inducted into the Oklahoma Journalism Hall of Fame. Walker is among 10 inductees to be honored. “The 50th anniversary gives us an opportunity to celebrate the many historic accomplishments of journalists who have made an impact in Oklahoma and nationwide,” said Joe Hight, director and Edith Kinney Gaylord Endowed Chair of Journalism Ethics at the University of Central Oklahoma. The gala will be at 6 p.m. Friday, April 24, at the Oklahoma History Center.
Amy Buckman, Dir. of School and Community Relations for Lower Merion School District, was recognized by the Phila. Public Relations Assoc. for her work following the deaths of LM alumnus Kobe Bryant, his daughter and seven others. Her statement on behalf of the District at 4:15 p.m. ET the day of the crash was carried live internationally. She coordinated media availabilities with student athletes and alumni, and with Mr. Bryant’s coaches, while balancing the safety and emotional needs of students and staff with the desire of members of the public who wanted to pay homage outside the high school gymnasium.
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Sharon Sutker McGowan (MSJ75)
Sharon Sutker McGowan was named to the Milwaukee Press Club Hall of Fame in November 2019. McGowan was the founding editor of the Milwaukee Neighborhood News Service (NNS), a nonprofit online news organization that covers the central city of Milwaukee. McGowan left NNS in February 2019 to become the Collaborations Leader for the Institute for Nonprofit News.
Jack Modzelewski (MSJ80)
The stakes for today’s leaders are high. Leadership communication practices can be a differentiator, bringing new meaning to Winston Churchill’s statement: “The difference between mere management and leadership is communication.”
Leaders today spend up to 90 percent of each day communicating to make good things happen in their organizations. With compelling stories and strategies, “Talk Is Chief — Leadership, Communication & Credibility in a High-Stakes World” will inspire leaders to treat their communication practices as seriously as all of their other executive responsibilities.
Modzelewski has more than 35 years of experience working with many Fortune 500 companies as a communications consultant. “Talk is Chief” suggests that too many leaders undervalue and underperform their vital communication responsibilities. They do so at their own disadvantage in this age of heightened activism, transparency, disruption, disinformation, and crisis.
Leon Panetta, former congressman and US Secretary of Defense, recommends “Talk is Chief,” calling it “a guide to leadership at a challenging time of tweets, fake news and growing divisions within our democracy. The simple fact is that words matter – and that simple words matter the most when they speak to our values.”
Dean Charles Whitaker spoke to Jack about “Talk is Chief” – watch the interview on YouTube.
A “leap of faith” has taken Hannah Gebresilassie on a journey from working as a television reporter in a small-town in Illinois to launching headfirst into developing her own media brand.
Late in 2018, Gebresilassie launched HannahJoyTV and the and the Promote Positivity Movement, combining her passion for entrepreneurship and her love of storytelling to share uplifting news and promote a message of worldwide peace and unity for her followers across social media platforms.
Today, her personal brand and her company are still growing and evolving in ways she never expected.
“It’s taken its own form, honestly,” said Gebresilassie. “I went from just focusing on the storytelling aspect to releasing a brand, like a whole merch line that goes along with it. It went from just sharing positive stories to sharing a positive message in many forms.”
At the end of February, Gebresilassie was the keynote speaker for Project Africa, an annual event hosted by the African Student Association at Georgia Tech, her alma mater.
HannahJoyTV is simultaneously a celebration of Gebresilassie’s Ethiopian-Eritrean heritage and universal content that “anyone and everyone” can enjoy. This duality is reflected in HannahJoyTV’s logo: four hearts of green, yellow, red, and blue, from the colors of the Ethiopian and Eritrean flags.
The design reflects the desire for unity and peace between the two countries that Gebresilassie says she and many members of the Ethiopian and Eritrean communities hope for.
“But it’s also the same colors as Google, if you think about it,” Gebresilassie said. “I wanted to create something neutral that anybody could relate to.”
The daughter of Ethiopian and Eritrean immigrants, Gebresilassie grew up in Atlanta, Georgia. After earning an undergraduate in business administration from Georgia tech and a master’s in journalism from Medill, Gebresilassie fell in love with telling stories and became a television reporter for WSIL-TV in southern Illinois in the summer of 2017.
In her first year, Gebresilassie brought global perspectives to her local TV audience that rippled out across social media. After just a few months on the job, her coverage of an Ethiopian New Year celebration went viral. Not long after, Gebresilassie wore a traditional braided hairstyle on air that again caused a buzz.
“It was actually pretty crazy that I was reporting on this international situation in this little rural town in southern Illinois and people actually really appreciated it,” she said.
By the end of her first year she was in charge of WSIL-TV’s “Going Global,” a news segment where she could report and share stories about immigrant communities in southern Illinois.
“I just saw what I could do,” Gebresilassie said. “When I was working as a reporter, a lot of my stuff went viral. I just kind of said, ‘if I can do this here, what I could do on my own?’”
Gebresilassie said that what inspired her to transition to create HannahJoyTV was gaining a new perspective on the potential that was in front of her. The biggest challenge Gebresilassie faced was money— she moved from Southern Illinois back to Atlanta, Georgia, where her parents live.
“I’ve been the brokest I’ve been since undergrad, to be frank,” Gebresilassie said. “But I’m happy. I’m happy with the flexibility that I have and I’m thankful.”
Gebresilassie took on side jobs that were easy on her mental health as she developed HannahJoyTV— washing dishes and babysitting.
“I always tell people, everyone doesn’t come from the same type of financial situation,” she said. “And it’s okay to take jobs that can fill the gaps in the meantime.”
But in the past months, Gebresilassie has seen a burgeoning income from emceeing at events around the country and freelance projects she found through connections she made at Medill.
And she has developed an expert eye for cost-saving opportunities to promote her brand— in 2019, she organized a pop-up tour across eight states, around her existing travel plans to visit family.
But managing her time to address every aspect of her platform is also a challenge for Gebresilassie.
“The to-do list never seems to end,” she said. “For me, it’s like my mind goes in sometimes a hundred different directions, so I’m still working on building a structure and making sure that I’m just taking care of everything equally.”
But Gebresilassie has never doubted the direction she is taking— and for that she acknowledges her time at Medill.
“My time at Medill really prepared me to be the ultimate journalist…you’re at Medill with these incredibly talented people from all over,” she said. “And I found my niche while I was there. I found that my heart was in the community.”
Sports journalist Christine Brennan was awarded the 2020 Associated Press Sports Editors’ Red Smith Award, presented annually to an individual who has made “major contributions to sports journalism,” on March 4.
“This is such an honor,” said Brennan, who joined USA TODAY in August 1997. “I’ve been so fortunate to know or work with quite a few of the Red Smith Award winners over the years. They have been my role models, my editors and my mentors, so to join them is very humbling.”
Brennan is a sports columnist for USA Today, a commentator on ABC News, CNN, PBS NewsHour, NPR and a best-selling author.
Karen Entriken recently began a new role as Marketing Manager at Franklin Energy Services. The company designs and implements energy efficiency programs for utility, state, and municipality clients nationwide. Karen manages a team of marketing professionals to support energy companies in the mission to achieve energy efficiency and sustainability goals for industries and households.
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Marty Rosenberg (MSJ77)
The Department of Energy’s National Renewable Energy Lab in Colorado has asked Rosenberg to launch a podcast series, Grid Talk, to explore dramatic changes in the national energy grid to accommodate surging renewables and more distributed energy sources. Listen in at https://smartgrid.gov/gridtalk/- or subscribe via your favorite podcast platform as Marty talks to thought leaders about offshore wind in Virginia, Tesla batteries in Vermont, innovations in Australia and the wild proliferation of EV charging spots in Kansas City.