A North Carolina college student has been named this year’s winner of the $1,500 Scott-McKenna Scholarship, according to RMOWP Scholarship Chairman Mike Hammond.
Winner Christopher “Tyler” West is a resident of Topton, North Carolina, and attends Elon University in Elon, North Carolina, where he has a declared major of broadcast journalism and a minor in international studies. For the scholarship competition Tyler submitted a video on Glacier National Park, along with still images he has taken at different locations throughout the U.S., Hammond said. He also submitted his website, http://student.elon.edu/cwest3, that contains numerous other works.
“I have had a camera in my hand almost every day at Elon,” Tyler tells us. “I enjoy nature photography and am quickly running out of wall space for pictures. I also co-host “No Signal”, a webisode series encouraging college students to discover the outdoors (www.youtube.com/nosignalweb).
Tyler also recently produced a short documentary on students from low-income schools, and held an internship at Barrett Productions in Missoula, Montana. He says he knows his future will involve visual storytelling, and for a career he would like to be an international news correspondent in the Middle East.
“I love to travel, and I enjoy producing stories for both radio and television,” he says.
This year’s scholarship response was great, according to Mike Hammond, who says he had 84 applicants from 36 states, with California leading the pack with nine applicants followed by Texas with seven.