UW’s Western Confluence Magazine Earns Regional Awards

UW Haub School alumna Graham Marema’s image of pronghorn racing alongside a locomotive, which accompanied “Train Trek: A vision for bringing passenger rail back to the rural West,” won second place in the Illustration category of the Society of Professional Journalists Top of the Rockies competition. (Haub School Photo)

Western Confluence magazine, a publication of the Haub School of Environment and Natural Resources’ Ruckelshaus Institute at the University of Wyoming, recently won two awards in the Society of Professional Journalists Top of the Rockies competition. The contest received more than 1,850 entries from 80 news outlets and 20 freelancers.

Haub School alumna Graham Marema’s image of pronghorn racing alongside a locomotive, which accompanied “Train Trek: A vision for bringing passenger rail back to the rural West,” won second place in the Illustration category.

The issue’s cover -- featuring artwork by Western Confluence Editor Birch Malotky and June Glasson, an artist and 2018 Ruckelshaus Institute Communication Fellow, and design by Tana Stith, Western Confluence graphic designer -- won second place in the “front page design” category.

Top of the Rockies is a regional, multiplatform contest for reporters and news organizations in Colorado, New Mexico, Utah and Wyoming. Western Confluence competes in the small newsroom division.

Both award winners were published in Issue No. 13 of Western Confluence, which explored ideas for sustainable outdoor recreation and tourism. The issue was inspired, in part, by the Ruckelshaus Institute’s Emerging Issue Forum “Building it the Way We Want It: Outdoor Recreation in Wyoming,” which explored how to balance the economic, social and environmental benefits of outdoor recreation against the impacts.

Western Confluence is an annual print magazine that explores the Rocky Mountain West’s most confounding natural resource issues while providing support and training to the next generation of environmental storytellers. Print and email subscriptions are free to interested readers.