Davis Kuhn – Smithson Valley High School – George and Ophelia Gallup Award
Davis Kuhn, of Smithson Valley High School in San Antonio, first picked up a camera as a sophomore and then asked to shoot the football season. Over the next few years he photographed the majority of sports at his school.
“I love sports. I love being around sports and getting to be on the sidelines or on the baseline of a basketball game with my camera is blast,” Kuhn said. “I love photography as well. Getting to combine the two is really what I love to do.”
On the side, Kuhn has branched out into photographing professional sports, including shooting nearly every San Antonio FC game. Next year Kuhn will attend the University of Utah and plans to continue photographing sports with the school’s athletic and journalism departments.
“I definitely recommend to everyone out there to try everything. I didn’t start until my sophomore year, and I had no idea that photography was even cool, and then, boom, it’s been three years, and now I think I want to do this for a living,” Kuhn said. “It really happened fast, but I’m really grateful to our journalism department for allowing me all the opportunities.”
Gabby Esquivel – McCallum High School – Richard P. Johns Scholarship
Gabby Esquivel, from McCallum High School in Austin, Texas, said her favorite thing to write is movie reviews because she loves to share what movies can offer beyond entertainment.
Esquivel joined The Shield, her school’s online newsmagazine, to pursue a love of writing and spent her time as a staff reporter. She knew she wanted to be a writer of some sort, but didn’t have an interest in creative writing. When she learned about The Shield, it “checked all the boxes for her.”
“I really like how you can share other people’s stories and traits with the rest of the school,” Esquivel said. “You do get some of the creative freedom that you get from creative writing, because you can just write about anything that you want to as long as you have a story to tell.”
As a staff writer, Esquivel said she had a lot of freedom in what she wrote about. Her favorite area to write about is arts and entertainment, specifically movie reviews. In college at Austin Community College Esquivel wants to expand her podcasting skills and continue writing.
Gwendlyn Wieland – Corning-Painted Post High School – Edward J. Nell Scholarship
Gwendlyn Wieland, from Corning-Painted Post High School in New York, led her yearbook staff as editor-in-chief this year.
She focused on storytelling through design over her time on the Tesserae and served as design editor as a junior. She said working with the yearbook staff “added to [her] own joy of journalism.”
“One of the key things my adviser says is that yearbook is just a big group project with like 54 students, so it was just a fun experience,” Wieland said. “I think my favorite part about being an editor was just seeing other students’ growth and seeing how they tackle their own challenges.”
Through her adviser Wieland was connected with the local Wineglass Marathon and got to design informational slides for the event. That experience opened her eyes to the world of design in a new way, Wieland said.
Next year Wieland will attend the Rochester Institute of Technology and plans to major in graphic design.
About the Scholarship
National winners in Quill and Scroll contests — such as the Yearbook Excellence Contest or the International Writing, Photography and Multimedia Contest and the Eye on Ivy Editorial Writing Contest — are eligible as seniors to apply for Quill and Scroll scholarships: the Edward J. Nell Memorial, or the George and Ophelia Gallup awards. The Richard P. Johns award is available to all Quill and Scroll seniors, including those who did not enter contests. The scholarships are awarded for the freshman year only and can be paid in two installments. Applications for next year’s student scholarships will open in February and will be due May 9, 2025.
Find more here.
