Youngstown Press Club Awards Scholarships to 2 Students

YOUNGSTOWN, Ohio – Two journalism students will receive $2,000 college scholarships from the Youngstown Press Club.

The recipients are Molly Burke, a junior at Youngstown State University, and Merrick Morneweck, a senior at Pennsylvania State University.

Burke is a graduate of Ursuline High School, where she competed on the speech and debate team for four years. She has received multiple awards for her reporting for The Jambar, YSU’s student-run newspaper, where she held several positions, including editor-in-chief.

Burke, a journalism major, collaborated with the Youngstown Press Club to organize and lead a Student Press Freedom Day observance at YSU in February.

Burke is a member of YSU’s Sokolov Honors College and the university’s chapter of Lambda Pi Eta, the National Communications Association’s collegiate honors society. She is also secretary of the university’s chapter of the Society for Collegiate Journalists.

She received the 2024 Drs. Robert R. and Mary Virginia Hare Writing Award for Distinction in Journalistic Writing from YSU’s communications department. Most recently, she became a multimedia content producer at 27 WKBN First News.

Morneweck, a native of Mercer, Pa., was a writer for the Hoofbeats newspaper at Mercer High School. She plans to graduate from Penn State next spring with a double major in journalism and English.

Morneweck interned at The Butler Eagle newspaper and is now a writing intern for the Penn State College of Arts and Architecture’s website. She is also a writer and editor for Her Campus at Penn State, an online magazine written by and for college women.

Burke and Morneweck will be recognized for their scholarship awards at the Youngstown Press Club’s Hall of Fame and Awards Banquet on Sept. 25 at Stambaugh Auditorium.   

Youngstown Press Club scholarships are awarded annually to college juniors or seniors living in the Mahoning or Shenango valleys and majoring in journalism or a related field. The scholarships are funded by the Frank and Pearl Gelbman Charitable Foundation, club membership dues, proceeds from club events and gifts from individuals and the club’s corporate sponsors.

Pictured at top: Molly Burke and Merrick Morneweck.

Published by The Business Journal, Youngstown, Ohio.