2010 Sacramento Press Club Scholarships

Since 1974, the Sacramento Press Club has offered scholarships to students who are preparing for a journalism career. For 2010/11, we are offering five scholarships, and they continue to be among the largest journalism awards in Northern California.

We will select one student for each of the following scholarships:

$6,000 in honor of the late Earl "Squire" Behrens, a former political editor of the San Francisco Chronicle who covered the state Capitol for a half-century.

$4,000 in honor of Jean Stephens, the long-time Secretary-Treasurer of the Sacramento Press Club and a retired Sacramento City College journalism instructor who helped thousands of journalism students become professional journalists over a 30-year career.

$2,500 in honor of the late Jerry Gillam, a 35-year veteran of the Capitol press corps. He is remembered for his knowledgeable political reporting in the Los Angeles Times' Sacramento bureau, his friendly mentoring of new Capitol reporters and his larger-than-life sense of humor.

$2,500 in honor of Barbara O'Connor, Ph.D., Professor of Communications at CSUS. She is a nationally recognized expert in the fields of political communication and telecommunications policy and applications. Newsweek named her one of "Fifty for the Future" for her impact on telecommunications policy. In more than three decades of teaching, she has sparked a passion for political journalism in countless students, and helped many other young people through her work on numerous boards.

$2,500 in honor of the late Bill Stall, Pulitzer Prize-winning editorial writer for the Los Angeles Times. In his nearly 50 year journalism career, Stall focused his reporting on government and politics, natural resources and the environment. He also passed on his expertise to students while teaching classes at USC. In the words of one friend and colleague, he is fondly remembered as "civil and courteous in a tense world of deadlines."