2009 Fitzwater Honors Speech

This was my speech after receiving the Fitzwater Medallion for Contributions to the Public Discourse. I received the award on May 4, 2009. Present were Marlin Fitzwater, Senator Lou D'Allesandro, Dr. George Hagerty, Franklin Pierce University faculty and staff, friends and family, Staff from WATD-FM, and WMUR-TV.

NBC news correspondent-at-large, Luke Russert, and retiring Franklin Pierce University president, George J. Hagerty, were honored with the 2009 Marlin Fitzwater Award for Leadership in Public Communication.

In addition to the presentation of the Fitzwater Award for Leadership, Fitzwater Medallions will be awarded to:
• Franklin Pierce graduating senior Steven Dodrill of Hanson, Mass.
• Franklin Pierce graduating senior Derek Gorman of Brockton, Mass.
• High School journalism teacher Linda Lawson of Concord High School in Concord, N.H.

Other recipients of the Fitzwater Award for Leadership in Public Communication include: Dana Perino, former Assistant to the President and Press Secretary at the White House, 2008; Steve Scully, C-SPAN senior executive producer and political editor, 2007; Kenneth Walsh, White House correspondent for U.S. News & World Report; 2006; Sen. Chuck Hagel (R-Neb.), 2005; and Victoria Clark, Deputy Secretary of Defense for Public Affairs, 2004.

Steven Dodrill, a senior Fitzwater scholar who has been involved in student media since his first day on campus, will graduate with a degree in mass communications from Franklin Pierce in May. Highlights of his time at Franklin Pierce include interviews with guests like Ann Compton of ABC News, Terry Hunt from the Associated Press and New Hampshire Governor John Lynch; as well as the opportunity to ride next to John McCain on the Straight Talk Express during his junior year. Dodrill has been a sports broadcaster all four years, live on the Web and on WFPC-LP. He was one of four students who covered the first in the nation presidential primary at St Anselm College, led teams of students covering house parties, rallies and town hall meetings all over the granite state, as well as the team of students who worked for HDNet's Dan Rather Reports on Election Day 2008. He then drove content to a University-branded YouTube channel, Fitz-Connect.

Dodrill has also anchored weekly newscasts for FPTV25, served as a two year Pierce Media Group fellow introducing new media to the center and served on the Franklin Pierce Fire Company. During his senior year, Dodrill joined SIFE- students in Free Enterprise as a co-media specialist. He is a co-founder of the New Hampshire Motor Speedway Green Team whose SIFE project was named one of the 20 best projects in the country in the regional March competition, and will be judged in mid-May on the national level. He has also recently won an Edward R. Murrow award for spot news coverage and has won three other professional broadcasting awards for breaking news. Dodrill has been interning in the newsroom at WMUR TV News 9 in Manchester, N.H. and will pursue a career in news reporting after graduation.

Category:

Travel & Events

Tags:

• Franklin
• Pierce
• University
• Rindge
• New
• Hampshire
• Dan
• Rather
• Lou
• D'Allesandro
• Marlin
• Fitzwater
• WMUR
• WATD
• Communications
• Discourse
• Hanson
• MA
• Whitman

[Blakbery9]

this guy is so adorable!

[ObrahWinfrey]

work on your posture