Students and alumni from KVSC 88.1FM have won six first-place Associated Press awards along with five honorable mentions; they have also been nominated for four Society of Professional Journalists (SPJ) Mark of Excellence awards. The KVSC 88.1FM students and alumni will collect their awards at the Midwest Journalism Conference April 12-13 in Bloomington, Minn.

KVSC’s News Director, Amelia Rowland, is the recipient of three of the Associated Press awards alone. “We did well in various aspects of the awards,” Rowland said. “Our staff works very hard throughout the year and to be recognized for our hard work is exciting. Not only was the News Department recognized, but our Sports Department was recognized as well.”

KVSC provides St. Cloud State University students the opportunity to apply knowledge gained in the classroom to live broadcasts and feature stories.

KVSC is a student-run educational and community radio station on the SCSU campus, and competes in the Minnesota Associated Press radio class one category designed for stations with one or zero full-time newsroom employees. KVSC broadcasts eight weekday newscasts and more than 75 SCSU sporting events throughout the academic year.

“Being News Director has taught me to be prepared for anything and everything,” Rowland said. “There have been multiple events over the course of my work that have taught me a lot about being a journalist. Whether it’s waiting five hours to listen to former President Bill Clinton speak on campus, or covering the death of a fallen officer, I believe these experiences have shaped me as a person and as a journalist.”

The Minnesota Associated Press Broadcasters Contest takes place annually with awards given to broadcasts from the previous year. The Midwest Journalism Conference plays host to the Minnesota AP Awards and is one of the largest regional journalism conferences in the country, attracting hundreds of journalists from Minnesota, Wisconsin, North Dakota, South Dakota, Iowa and Nebraska.