GSPA Awards Ceremony

WoodruffEach spring, GSPA holds an annual awards ceremony recognizing the state's top journalists. The 2012 ceremony will be held at noon, Thursday, April 26 at The Classic Center in downtown Athens.

Recent University of Georgia journalism graduate Mandi Woodruff, reporter for Business Insider in New York, will be the keynote speaker. Woodruff loves to write, and ever since enrolling in the Grady College at UGA she has found ways to follow her passion. After internships at Morris Newspapers covering the Georgia state legislature and Athena magazine covering lifestyles -- all while cranking out stories at UGA's Red & Black -- Woodruff graduated in 2009. Woodruff has taken an exciting personal and journalistic journey to her current position at Business Insider. After getting her start in Georgia at The Gainesville Times, she worked overseas at The Santiago Times in Santiago, Chile in 2010. Woodruff returned stateside to work at the Reader's Digest as a research associate editor. She also created The Bike Writer blog and has been published in The Wall Street Journal. At Business Insider, she covers personal finance issues specializing in real-life stories. Check out one of her latest stories here.

After Woodruff's speech, more than 150 awards will be distributed recognizing Georgia's top student journalism work in broadcast, literary magazine, newspaper, newsmagazine, website and yearbooks. The banquet will end no later than 2:30 p.m.

Reservations are required by April 16 and cost is $20 per attendee and includes a southern-style lunch.

Download the registration form.

Patch.com regional editor Perry Parks gives the keynote address at the 2011 GSPA Awards Ceremony, held April 28 at the University of Georgia.