The Milwaukee Press Club presented its journalism awards at its annual Gridiron Dinner in Milwaukee on May 14.  UW Oshkosh’s WRST-FM came away with four of the eight awards in the collegiate audio competitions.  

In the category for best feature story, WRST student news director Mariah Tralongo took a first place award for her radio documentary The Secret Life of a 9-1-1 Dispatcher, which talked with these public safety workers about the unique challenges of their jobs. Tralongo also took third place in this category for another long-form segment called The Blacksmith, which profiled a local blacksmith who talked about his craft. Both segments were produced for the Advanced Radio Production class at UWO.

In the category for best sports story, WRST garnered a second place award for an interview with basketball legend Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, conducted by student sports host Greg Peterson. Peterson is now a sports talk producer and host at WNSR-AM/FM in Nashville, Tennessee.

In the category for best news story (single or on-going), student Cody Krupp won a third place award for his story Administration vs. Association, which detailed recent budget challenges at UWO’s student newspaper; it was also produced for the Advanced Radio Production class. Krupp is now a sports reporter and anchor at KESQ-TV, the ABC affiliate in Palm Springs, California.

For the second year in a row, the WRST winners were the only ones in the audio categories from an over-the-air radio outlet: the others are all for audio segments on student-run news websites.

Since 2010, WRST has won 23 Milwaukee Press Club honors.  So far this academic year, the station has won 26 national, regional and statewide awards.

WRST is heard in the Oshkosh area at 90.3 on the FM dial and worldwide at www.wrst.org.