by Julie Dodd
Mentoring Committee
Linda Barrington
Congratulations to Linda Barrington for her selection as JEA’s Carl Towley Award winner for 2013.
Linda, co-chair of the Mentoring Committee, will receive the award at the Awards Luncheon at the JEA/NSPA convention in Boston on Saturday, Nov. 16.
The Carl Towley Award is JEA’s highest award and recognizes individuals whose “work is unusually beneficial and of superior value to the national JEA and to scholastic journalism.”
Linda was one of driving forces behind the development of the JEA Mentoring Program. The program is starting its seventh year, working in 17 states with 30 mentors and more than 220 new journalism teachers who have participated in the program.
A major focus of Linda’s scholastic journalism work has been with the Kettle Moraine Press Association. She has served as a board member, treasurer, president, director of KEMPA Summer Journalism Workshops, director of KEMPA Journalism Day Workshops and membership chair. She now is KEMPA director. She has shared strategies and best practices with other scholastic press association directors in numerous Scholastic Press Association Roundtables at the JEA/NSPA conventions.
Linda served for seven years as JEA’s liaison to the National Council of Teachers of English. In that role, Linda helped grow JEA’s involvement in NCTE, with the Assembly for Advisers of Student Publications/ Journalism Education Association (AASP/JEA) being NCTE’s largest assembly. As NCTC liaison, Linda recruited JEA members to be presenters at the NCTE conventions and also set up a booth at each convention of JEA books and materials. Linda has served on the JEA Certification Commission, scoring certification exams and helping keep the exam questions updated.
Those of us who have worked with Linda in the Mentoring Program know the hard work she has invested in making the program so valuable to mentors and new journalism teachers.