The University of Mississippi’s Meek School of Journalism presented awards to journalism students and awarded the Samuel Talbert Silver Em to a senior editor at USA Today at their awards banquet Wednesday.
Frank Anklam Jr. received the journalism school’s highest award for his career in journalism and contributions to Mississippi. Initiated in 1958 and named after former journalism chair Samuel Talbert in 2008, the Silver Em is given annually to a Mississippi journalist whose career displays the highest tenets of honorable, public service journalism, inside or outside the state.
Over 75 people came to the Inn at Ole Miss for the annual Meek School awards night where 35 students as well as Anklam were honored.
“When you go to school here, you study, and you try to take what you learn here out into the real world and perform what you think is your best,” Anklam said. “Then you get your university to call you back and say, ‘you have done a great job.’ It’s very special.”
Anklam obtained his journalism degree from The University of Mississippi after a year at the U.S. Military Academy at West Point. According to Anklam, he turned down his military commission when he realized journalism was his passion.
During Anklam’s six years at The Clarion-Ledger in Jackson, he joined a six-month investigation team in 1982. This team worked on educational reform in Mississippi schools — reforms pushed by Governor William Winter. Anklam’s and his teams’ coverage led The Clarion-Ledger to a Pulitzer Prize and achieved educational reform in Mississippi.
In his introduction of Anklam, Charles Overby, chairman of the Overby Center for Southern Journalism and Politics, said Anklam impressed him long before he won a Pulitzer Prize.
Reminiscing on Anklam’s experiences at Ole Miss, journalism dean Will Norton Jr. remembered how he taught Anklam in his advanced reporting class, and though Anklam dropped the class twice, he received an ‘A’ his third time around.
“Fred Anklam is a really talented person who doesn’t try to impress you with how good he is, how able he is,” Norton said. “He’s real quiet, and you have to be thinking about him to realize how capable he is. He’s just an exceptional human being.”
New Kappa Tau Alpha Journalism Honor Society members were also inducted, and awards such as the Overby Award and Meek School Dean’s awards were given to journalism students.
In parting, an emotional Anklam said, “This is the place that molded me into the journalist I am today. I want to sincerely say ‘thank you’ and ‘Hotty Toddy’.
– Aryil Onstott
