The Journalism Education Association (JEA) named Candace Bowen, associate professor and director of the Center for Scholastic Journalism, the 2013 Linda S. Puntney Teacher Inspiration Award winner.

“The award is something that JEA gives every year to someone who inspired people to become journalism teachers,” Bowen said.

Colleen Gacic Simpson, a teacher at Scituate High School in Massachusetts, and a former student of Bowen’s at St. Charles High School in Illinois, nominated her for the award.

“She was the first teacher to really make me feel passionate about literature,” Simpson said. “She had the ability to make you see that words were just like a puzzle that needed to be solved.”

Bowen and Simpson re-connected when Simpson came to Kent State in the summer of 2006 for the ASNE High School Journalism Institute.

Bowen has been at Kent State for 18 years. She originally came to Kent State looking to work at a local high school. At the time, she contacted associate professor Barbara Hipsman to see if any high schools were hiring for a newspaper advisor.

“She said ‘I don’t know of any right now, but I have another idea, I’ll get back to you’,” Bowen said.

Hipsman talked to the JMC director at the time to get Bowen a position that worked with the high schools full-time at the university.

In 2007, Bowen created an online master’s degree program in journalism education. She said they have students from all over the country, mainly high school journalism teachers.

She will be going to San Francisco in April to accept her JEA award.

Contact Haley Phillippi at [email protected].