Letters from the Newsroom

From Alonzo Weston

05.07.03

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Alonzo Weston

Dear Diversity Institute,

In May I will receive a media award from the Department of Mental Health in the govenor’s mansion in Jefferson City, Mo. It is for a series of articles I did to help bring more awareness to the mental health issue. A reporter from the St. Louis Post Dispatch and I won the award this year.

I won an honorable mention award for humorous columns in the 2002 Missouri Press Association’s annual Missouri Better Newspapers Contest. I’m also working with the St. Joseph Museum, Inc. on taping some oral histories for its black archives. And I’m working with the museum on writing a book on St. Joseph’s black history.

I still have the Coleman Hawkins jazz festival stuff still going on. Our group got a park renamed in his honor last November.

My editors say I have been on fire since I came back from Nashville. Thanks for the spark.

Alonzo Weston, a graduate of the inaugural Diversity Institute class, is a reporter covering mental health issues at the News-Press in St. Joseph, Mo.