H. H. Dow High School teacher Cammie Hall is the 2023 recipient of the Michigan Interscholastic Press Association’s Golden Pen Award.
Hall was recognized during an online ceremony on April 27.
The Golden Pen is the highest award MIPA bestows on a student media adviser and has been given continuously since 1952. Teachers must be nominated by their students, who assemble an extensive portfolio showcasing the teacher’s involvement in scholastic journalism activities and the impact they have had on current and past students.
The recipient is chosen by a committee of previous Golden Pen honorees.
Hall has taught for 14 years at H. H. Dow, where she is the long-time adviser of the newspaper, The Update, and the yearbook, The Charger. Three years ago, she worked with students to launch the school’s broadcast program, Bolt Media, and helped faculty restart the school’s literary magazine, Fragments.
The media programs have been honored numerous times by state and national scholastic journalism organizations, including MIPA.
In the materials they assembled about Hall, students praised her repeatedly for fostering a media program in which students are empowered to make all coverage decisions while being held to the highest standards for professional-level journalistic work.
“While encouraging her students to take on new challenges, Cammie is there to help each student find their footing and discover what is best for them,” Page Barnard, editor-in-chief of The Charger yearbook, wrote in her nomination of hall for this award. “She has truly become a rock and I feel that I can go to her with any problem and issue I may have, which makes her the best adviser and teacher that I have ever had.”
Emma Mertes, an editor-in-chief of the Update newspaper, said Hall has helped her improve her leadership and problem-solving skills.
“Because of her, I have also grown more confident in my abilities because she gives me, just as she gives everyone else, the opportunity to be independent and creative and apply our own ideas to the publication,” Mertes said.
Joe Craig, an editor-in-chief of the Update, praised Hall’s dedication to her students.
“Her attention to detail is impeccable, and she is always willing to be able to go above and beyond to
make sure her students are doing the best work possible,” he said.
Hall’s 2023 nomination was supported by 32 students who participate in the programs she advises. Repeatedly, they praise her for her care and support — and also for pushing them to do better. Update newspaper staff member Isabella Brown said Hall is both her biggest critic and biggest supporter.
“Cammie Hall gives criticism while making it clear that she is supporting me and always believes in me,” Brown said.
Hall also has been involved in scholastic journalism outside of her school. She is treasurer of MIPA’s Executive Board has been an instructor at the MIPA Summer Journalism Workshop at Michigan State University.
Hall has a bachelor’s degree in business education from Central Michigan University, master’s degrees in journalism from Michigan State University and a master’s degree in educational technology from CMU. She lives in Midland with her husband, Heath Heatherington. They have two children, Hayden and Isabelle.
MIPA launched the Golden Pen Award in 1952 as one of several ways to memorialize Donal Hamilton Haines, a University of Michigan Department of Journalism professor who served as MIPA’s director from its early days until 1950. Haines also advised U-M’s student chapter of Sigma Delta Chi, now known as the Society of Professional Journalists, which was the key organizer of MIPA’s first conference on May 22, 1922. Sigma Delta Chi honored the first Golden Pen winners with a golden “key” or pin of a quill, a tradition MIPA continues.
ABOUT THE MICHIGAN INTERSCHOLASTIC PRESS ASSOCIATION
Founded in 1921 and housed in the Michigan State University School of Journalism, the Michigan Interscholastic Press Association is a nonprofit organization composed of scholastic journalism teachers and publications advisers and their students. MIPA is committed to promoting and recognizing excellence in scholastic journalism at all levels through education, training and support of student journalists and their advisers.