Caleigh Bartash and Jill Rice Awarded ACES Bill Walsh Editing Scholarship for 2022

Congrats to Caleigh Bartash, a senior at the University of Maryland, and Jill Rice, a senior at Fordham College at Lincoln Center in New York, on winning the 2022 copy-editing scholarship named after my late brother, Bill Walsh. My brother Terence and I are judges on the panel each year. And out of 28 candidates this time around, we were so impressed with both of them that it ended in a tie -- something that has never happened before. I was unable to attend the ceremony at which the prizes were handed out, but my brother's widow, Jacqueline, is in San Antonio for the festivities, and shared the photo below.

She writes: The three most recent winners of Bill's scholarship, together on the San Antonio River Walk. (don't worry, they each got a book)

Hard to fathom that he’s been gone five years now; we sure miss you, Billy. 💔

From a release:

For the first time, the $3,500 Bill Walsh Scholarship for excellence in the editing of news has been awarded to two students in the same year. The winners are Caleigh Bartash, a senior at the University of Maryland, and Jill Rice, a senior at Fordham College at Lincoln Center in New York.

They are the fifth and sixth winners of the Walsh Scholarship, named for the late author of three books and an editor of news at The Washington Post. The award is administered by the Education Fund of ACES: The Society for Editing and is endowed by the Walsh family, ACES members and other contributors. Bill Walsh was a member of the Education Fund board.

In addition to each winning $3,500, the students receive support to attend the annual ACES conference for skill-building.

Bartash, majoring in multi-platform journalism, is an editor at Stories Beneath the Shell, a student-run digital publication that covers underreported and diverse stories in the University of Maryland community and surroundings. She has interned with Stars and Stripes, which is the independent news provider for the U.S. military community, and the National Consumers League. 

As an editor of news, Bartash says, “It is my job to ensure that readers can quickly grasp current events that inform their lives. I have to draw them in and present information concisely.”

Rice is an online editor for The Fordham Observer, the university’s student newspaper, and has interned at Busted Halo, a media resource that aims for a more joyful and meaningful experience of Catholicism. She majors in classical languages and comparative literature, noting that “Latin is what taught me English grammar,” which is a foundation for editing.

She adds, “Editing news lets me become (and stay) aware of anything that happens in the world—and I can spell it all, too.”

Finalists for the 2022 Bill Walsh Scholarship had to take a timed editing test, write a short essay about the joys of editing news, correct a news lede, write short summaries for a variety of news reports and write briefly regarding the worst thing a news copy editor can do.  

For more information, click HERE.