Bernard Kilgore Memorial Scholarship for 2016

The Bernard Kilgore Memorial Scholarship will be awarded following a statewide competition, sponsored by the New Jersey Press Foundation and the Garden State Scholastic Press Association.

The scholarship – valued at $5,000 – is awarded by New Jersey Press Foundation, which administers the Bernard Kilgore Memorial Scholarship Fund. The recipient also is named GSSPA's New Jersey High School Journalist of the Year and is entered in a competition for the National High School Journalist of the Year, operated by the Journalism Education Association.

The scholarship recipient is selected by a panel of New Jersey newspaper editors. Selection criteria include the student's intent to major in journalism in college. Applicants must have at least two years of experience on their high school newspaper. Applicants must submit at least three letters of recommendations with their applications and at least three samples of writing published in the high school or community newspaper. Because applicants must have at least a 3.0 grade point average out of 4.0, a current high school transcript must be enclosed with the application package.

The Kilgore Scholarship recipient is announced at NJPA’s annual editorial awards banquet in April and at GSSPA's Spring Advisers’ Conference in May.

The Kilgore Scholarship is possible because of gifts to New Jersey Press Foundation from the Kilgore family and friends, The Princeton Packet and Dow Jones Foundation.

Bernard Kilgore was the dominant figure at The Wall Street Journal and its parent corporation, Dow Jones and Company, for more than a quarter century. He purchased The Princeton Packet in 1955, at the time The Wall Street Journal was beginning to become large and successful. Kilgore created The National Observer, the nation’s first national weekly newspaper, built up Barron’s financial weekly, and expanded the Dow Jones News Service into a world-wide supplier of business and financial news. At the time of his death in 1967, the Journal had grown from a small financial newspaper into the only national daily newspaper. Kilgore was 59 years old when he died. In 2000, he was honored posthumously by TJFR Group as the Business Journalist of the 20th Century.

Kilgore's commitment to the nation's young journalists was demonstrated by his leadership in creating the Dow Jones Newspaper Fund, a foundation devoted to encouraging young people to pursue careers in journalism. He believed that the newspaper business needed to identify and encourage more talented writers and editors in order to remain strong and profitable. The Newspaper Fund, founded in 1958, was to help address that concern. One of that foundation’s first programs was to send inexperienced high school journalism teachers back to college to study journalism during the summer months.

The application form for the 2016 Bernard Kilgore Memorial Scholarship.

Founded in 1962 as the charitable arm of the New Jersey Press Association.

NJPF is a charitable 501(c)(3) foundation for inspiring youth readership, advancing student journalism, providing scholarships and professional internships, and boosting the public�s understanding of the free press and its role in our democratic society.