Media College News

Elizabeth Oppe, Ph.D., Tricia Petty and Geah Pressgrove,Ph.D., have been recognized for their outstanding service to WVU Reed College of Media students and to the state of West Virginia.

Elizabeth Oppe, a teaching associate professor at the College, is the recipient of the Beginning Service Award, a Heebink Award for Distinguished Service to the state of West Virginia. Established in 1992, the award is given to faculty and staff who have “used the unique resources of the university” as well as their own professional experience to provide an educational or public service benefit to West Virginians. Oppe will receive a $2,000 honoraria for professional development support.

Maryanne Reed , who transformed West Virginia University’s journalism school into an exemplar of modern media training as the Reed College of Media , was named vice president for academic affairs and provost of the University on Wednesday (April 17).

Reed, who became dean of the then-named P.I. Reed School of Journalism in 2004, succeeds Joyce McConnell, recently named president of Colorado State University.

At nine years old, Hilde Lysiak was the first to break the news of a homicide in her hometown in Pennsylvania. She’s 12 now and about to add another “first” to her pre-teen resume. On May 10, Lysiak will give the 2019 commencement address for the West Virginia University Reed College of Media. She will be the youngest commencement speaker ever at WVU and maybe in the country.

Hilde, who is the youngest member of the national Society of Professional Journalists, is the publisher of the Orange Street News in Selinsgrove, Pennsylvania, which she founded in 2014. The paper has 700-plus paid subscribers and has been read by millions more online. In addition to breaking the murder story, she has exposed corruption at a local fire department leading to the firing of top officials, and her exclusive reports on an alleged KKK member forced the suspect to leave town.