Schwartz Award Winners

  • 2003: Bill Monroe

    Bill Monroe (1969) worked as publisher of the Spencer Daily Reporter and editor of the Cedar Valley Daily Times in Vinton, Iowa before becoming the executive director of the Iowa Newspaper Association in 1982. Read More

  • 2002: James E. Grunig

    James Grunig (1964) is leading scholar and researcher of communications and behavior at the University of Maryland. He developed a situational theory that accounts for why people communicate, when they are most likely to communicate, and when communications are likely to have an impact. Read More

  • 2001: Louis M. Thompson, Jr.

    Louis M. Thompson, Jr. (1961, 1969) is a nationally recognized expert in corporate disclosure and governance and a long-time advocate of the investor relations officer’s role with corporate boards of directors. Read More

  • 2000: Christopher Adams

    Chris Adams (1988) is a reporter in the McClatchy Washington Bureau. He previously worked for the Wall Street Journal and the (New Orleans) Times-Picayune. Adams has reported on education, the steel industry, health care, race relations, and the environment. He has won numerous awards, including being a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in 1996 and 1999, and in 2000 was part of a six-person Journal team that won the Pulitzer for stories on Pentagon spending. Read More

  • 1999: Herbert Plambeck

    Herb Plambeck was a farm worker, youth leader, and extension agent before becoming farm editor of the Davenport Times-Democrat in 1935. In 1936, he became farm director for WHO Radio in Des Moines, Iowa, a position he held until 1970. Read More

  • 1998: Merrill Oster

    Merrill Oster (1974) is an international business journalist and publishing entrepreneur. He founded several companies in the futures industry, including FutureSource, Professional Farmers of America, and Commodity Price Charts. Read More

  • 1997: Ann K. Cooper

    Ann Cooper (1971) reported for several newspapers and magazines before joining National Public Radio (NPR). Cooper was NPR’s first Moscow bureau chief, where she covered the final years of Soviet communism. Afterward, she was bureau chief in Johannesburg, and later covered the United Nations for NPR. Read More

  • 1996: James F. Evans

    James Evans (1954), considered a leader in agricultural communications, began his career as the associate farm director for WBAY radio and television in Green Bay. In the early 1960s, he began heading the teaching and research in the Agricultural Communications Department at the University of Illinois. Read More

  • 1995: Ralph W. Anderson

    Ralph W. Anderson (1933) grew up in northern Iowa and learned the weekly newspaper business from his father, publisher of the Ringsted Dispatch. Anderson’s career included editor and publisher duties in Grundy Center and at the Farm Bureau Spokesman. Read More

  • 1994: Mollie Cooney (Smith)

    Mollie Cooney (1976) went to work for KCCI in Des Moines as a reporter and anchor. In 1979, Cooney left to work for KNTV in San Jose, Calif. Read More