Caroline Blackmon, a rising senior at Washington and Lee University in Lexington, Virginia, is the recipient of the Virginia Press Women Foundation’s 2018 Agnes Cooke Scholarship.

She was announced as this year’s scholarship winner at the spring conference of Virginia Professional Communicators, with which the foundation is affiliated, at the University of Richmond on Saturday, May 5.

Blackmon, who is from Atlanta, is majoring in journalism and economics. Upon graduation, she said she hopes to work at newspaper or broadcast television station.

“My favorite thing about reporting and being involved in the journalism business is telling people’s stories,” Blackmon said. “As a journalist, I want to get to know as many different people as I can and to make sure their voices are heard.”

Blackmon volunteers as the news director of the Rockbridge Report, a twice-weekly cable television news program produced by Washington and Lee students. She is also the sports section editor of the university’s student-run newspaper Ring-tum Phi and the editor-in-chief of the student life magazine inGeneral.

She has also been studying Spanish, which she said she enjoys speaking and hopes to incorporate into her adult life. She volunteers as a peer tutor for Washington and Lee students in Spanish and tutors low-income students at an elementary school in Lexington. This summer, she plans to work at the Detroit Free Press.

“I am extremely excited and honored to have received this scholarship,” she said.

The VPW Foundation awards a scholarship every year to a deserving Virginia college student who is interested in pursuing a career in communications. Blackmon received a $1,000 scholarship and a year’s membership in VPC.

Virginia Professional Communicators, formerly known as Virginia Press Women, is affiliated with the National Federation of Press Women. The VPW Foundation was created in 1992 to administer the scholarship, which is named after a charter member of the organization who served as president from 1964-66.