University of Missouri

Dean David Kurpius opens the banquet with a toast of Missouri River water. Kurpius joined the Missouri School of Journalism in July 2015 after serving as a professor and administrator at Louisiana State University for almost 20 years.

Mizzou Forte greets the crowd at the Reynolds Alumni Center with song before the banquet begins.

Missouri Honor Medalist Merrill Perlman, a copy editor formerly with the New York Times, and Professor Emeritus Brian Brooks mingle with students.

Photojournalist Gerd Ludwig shares stories with banquet attendees, including master's student Alexey Furman.

Cuban blogger, journalist and entrepreneur Yoani Sánchez is accompanied by her translator, Alejandro Gonzalez.

Author and activist Barbara Ehrenreich receives her honor medal from Provost Garnett Stokes. Ehrenreich is the author of 21 books, including New York Times bestsellers Nickel and Dimed: On (Not) Getting By in America (2001), Bright-Sided: How Positive Thinking Is Undermining America (2010) and Living with a Wild God (2014). Ehrenreich is also a frequent contributor to The New York Times, Harpers, The Progressive and Time and has appeared on Oprah and The Daily Show.

Merrill Perlman, BJ '74, shakes Dean David Kurpius' hand after receiving her honor medal. In 1983, Perlman was hired as a business copy editor at The New York Times, later becoming metro copy desk chief (twice), night metro editor, an editor on the Week in Review, recruiting editor for copy desks and managing editor of The New York Times News Service. In 2004, she was named director of copy desks, in charge of the 160-plus copy editors across the newsroom.

Dean David Kurpius shares a laugh with Meredith Artley, BJ '95, editor-in-chief of Missouri Honor Medal-winning organization CNN Digital. CNN Digital, which encompasses CNN.com, CNNi.com and CNNMoney, is one of the world’s leading digital news brands, reaching more than 100 million unique users a month worldwide across mobile and desktop platforms.

Entrepreneur and activist Lincoln Stephens, BJ '03, delivers his acceptance speech after receiving an honor medal. In November 2008, Stephens quit his job as an advertising account management executive to pursue his passion for mentorship. He co-founded the Marcus Graham Project, a nonprofit focused on bringing more diversity to the advertising industry through mentorship, exposure and career development. It has been featured in Advertising Age, Black Enterprise and Savoy as well as on CNN and NBC. Stephens was named one of Advertising Age’s “40 under 40″ marketing leaders in 2013.

Lincoln Stephens' wife wipes a tear from her eye during her husband's speech.

Bill Plante, a senior White House correspondent for CBS News, mingles with students before ceremonies begin. Plante has covered the administrations of Ronald Reagan (beginning in 1981), Bill Clinton, George W. Bush and Barack Obama as well as every presidential campaign since 1968.

Leon Carter, an ESPN vice president, shares stories with students.

Sandy Rosenbush, an ESPN event-news editor, accepts an honor medal on behalf of the Sports Journalism Institute, along with Leon Carter. The two are co-directors of the institute, a nine-week training and internship program for college students interested in sports-journalism careers. The institute is designed to attract talented minorities and women to journalism through opportunities in sports reporting and editing as well as to enhance race and gender diversity in sports departments nationwide.

Yoani Sánchez accepts her honor medal. Sánchez is an acclaimed Cuban blogger, journalist and founder of 14ymedio, Cuba’s first independent daily digital news outlet. In 2009 President Barack Obama wrote that her blog “provides the world a unique window into the realities of daily life in Cuba” and applauded her efforts to “empower fellow Cubans to express themselves through the use of technology.” Time magazine named Sánchez one of the World’s 100 Most Influential People, and Foreign Policy magazine has named her one of the Top 100 Global Thinkers.

Gerd Ludwig accepts his honor medal. Soon after leaving Germany and moving to New York in the mid-1980s, Ludwig started photographing for National Geographic magazine. His focus on environmental issues and the socioeconomic changes following the dissolution of the Soviet Union resulted in his book Broken Empire: After the Fall of the USSR, a 10-year retrospective published by National Geographic in 2001 in the U.S., Germany and Korea. Ludwig’s ongoing coverage of post-Soviet Russia has garnered his distinction as the world’s foremost color photographer documenting the region.

Publisher Rea Hederman, MA '70, poses for a portrait with his family members and friends: from left, Patrick Hederman, Angela Hederman, Rea Hederman, Jean Jenner and Mike Jenner, Houston Harte Chair and a former staffer of The Hattiesburg American. Hederman has been publisher of The New York Review of Books since 1984. A native of Jackson, Mississippi,  he was executive editor of the Jackson Clarion-Ledger 1973-1982. During that period, he transformed what was generally considered to be a racist and journalistically inferior publication into a newspaper that won almost every major national award for journalism, including the Robert F. Kennedy Journalism Award, the George Polk Award, the Heywood Broun Award and the Pulitzer Prize for public service for work published in 1982.

Lincoln Stephens poses for a portrait with his wife, parents and baby.

Strategic communication master's student Katie Moeller (left) poses for a quick cell phone picture with a fellow journalism student and Missouri Honor Medalist Bill Plante, CBS News senior White House correspondent.