The Big Island Press Club announces the availability of scholarships for students pursuing higher education in journalism and related careers.
The 2023 application deadline is Thursday, April 20. To qualify, applicants must have Big Island residential ties, demonstrate an interest in journalism or related career, be enrolled as a full-time student, and show a record of academic achievement.
Applicants can apply online at www.bigislandpressclub.org/page/2225270-2023-scholarships.
Last year, BIPC awarded scholarships to the following people.
• Lichen Forster of Mountain View was given the Bill Arballo Scholarship. Bill Arballo was a founding member of Big Island Press Club in 1967 and its first president. A former United Press International reporter, he is honored through a scholarship funded by an annual donation of $1,000 from Bill’s daughter, Teresa Barth, and her husband, Bill. Arballo died in 2016.
• Lehia Coloma of Kurtistown was awarded the Hugh Clark Scholarship. A 2022 graduate of Kamehameha Schools Hawaii, Coloma attends Grand Canyon University in Phoenix. Hugh Clark was called a “newspaperman’s newspaperman.” He wrote about crime, politics, sports and volcanic eruptions for various Hawaii newspapers.
• Briana Harmon of Waimea was given the Robert Miller/Yukino Fukabori Scholarship. Harmon graduated from Hawaii Preparatory Academy and attends Davidson College in Davidson, North Carolina. Robert Miller was a UPI reporter whose 1968 speech to BIPC inspired Ouida Hill, wife of state Sen. W.H. “Doc” Hill, to donate $1,000 to start the Miller Scholarship. Miller died in 2004. Noteworthy for reporting “hard news” for the Tribune-Herald as early as the 1930s when women reporters were generally on the society page, Fukabori, who later taught news writing at Hilo High School, funded a scholarship in 1993. She died in 1995.
Completed applications must be received by 11:59 p.m. HST on April 20, and announcement of winners will be at the annual Big Island Press Club scholarship event this spring.
The scholarship dinner will be on May 11 at Seaside Restaurant and Aqua Farm in Keaukaha. Keynote speaker is Brian Wild, a BIPC scholarship winner and one-time student member on the board of directors. He’s now an attorney and has returned to the Big Island to serve in the Hilo branch of the state’s Office of the Public Defender.
Brian served as editor-in-chief of Ke Kalahea, UH Hilo’s student-run news publication; he subsequently served as chairman of UH Manoa’s Student Media Board while in law school.
Tickets may be purchased for that dinner at www.bigislandpressclub.org.