CAMS Students Earn Awards, Scholarships

Students from NMU's Communication and Media Studies Department earned awards and competitive scholarships at the 2026 Michigan Association of Broadcasters' (MAB) Student Awards ceremony in Lansing.

A group of four received honorable mention in the visual "Live Sports Coverage" category for their streaming coverage of a Wildcat football game, and two won competitive scholarships from the MAB Foundation. Two students from Radio X also earned honorable mention in the "Music Feature or Special" category. They competed against peers from Big 10 and other regional universities across the state.

Most of the students in instructor Mike Lakenen's sports and special events course served in media crew positions for the Wildcat football game. But because only four student names are allowed on an MAB award submission, those who held higher leadership positions for the production were selected. Emma Marotz directed the show, Nathan Phipps was in charge of audio, Austin Graham was the play-by-play announcer and Tristen Harsila provided color commentary.

Multimedia journalism junior Emma Marotz was selected from applicants across the state to receive the $1,000 Cher Allen Memorial Broadcasting Scholarship, and multimedia journalism junior Luke Knittel was chosen as the winner of the $1000 Stephen A. Marks Foundation, Inc. Scholarship, which goes to an NMU broadcasting student each year.

Sam Colburn and Lauren Lahtinen of Radio X were honored for their show titled "Playlist with the President." During the 105-minute production, the students asked former NMU President Brock Tessman about songs that had special meaning to him and his experiences at NMU. The songs mentioned by Tessman were woven throughout the interview. The show aired on WUPX (Radio X) at 91.5 FM and it was livestreamed through the station's website at nmu.edu/wupx.

The beginning of the awards event started with keynote presentations from media professionals. After the awards ceremony, NMU students met with Michigan media and journalism organizations from across the state at the MAB Career Fair. The students, along with Dr. Dwight Brady and Dr. Mark Shevy from the CAMS Department, also helped staff an NMU table at the career fair, so that they could tell high school students about opportunities at Northern.