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Senior Lecturer and Meredith Professional-in-Residence Deb Gibson received the 2016 Faculty and Staff Inspiration Award from the Iowa State Alumni Association last spring. Gibson, who’s taught at the school since 2000, said the award and the nominations that led to it mirrored her own experience as an Iowa State journalism major in the late seventies.

During her acceptance speech, Gibson recalled initially feeling overwhelmed by her first reporting and writing class and its bootcamp-style coursework. What helped her persevere and continue into a lifelong career in the industry and eventually teaching, she told the audience, was encouragement from her first journalism instructor, Dr. Dale Boyd.

Gibson vividly remembers receiving her final grade from Boyd’s class, which, along with her A grade, included a note from Boyd: “Your work shows bursts of brilliance and professionalism, but to succeed you must overcome what appears to be great shyness.”

“To this day, I regret not telling Dale Boyd thank you for giving me that push that I needed, for telling me ‘yes, I could do it,’” Gibson said. “It’s with a full heart, that I thank my former students for telling me what I should have said to him.”