Larsh Bristol Photojournalism Fellowship 10th Anniversary Celebrated at UW

Two University of Wyoming visual arts majors -- Jamie Lindsey, from Laramie, and Cheyenne’s Tamara Rodgers -- received the 2018 Larsh Bristol Fellowship for work in photojournalism at the 10th anniversary banquet Oct. 12.

The Larsh Bristol Photojournalism Fellowship was started in 2008 to commemorate the life and work of Larsh Bristol, who died in 2006. Many of the fellows who won the award returned to Laramie to honor Bristol at the banquet, hosted by the UW Department of Communication and Journalism at the Marian H. Rochelle Gateway Center.

“Why did we start this? We wanted our friend to still have a presence at the university,” says Kendie Hartman, UW alumna and fellowship donor. “We wanted his presence to help the university in some way, and that is what we hope we are doing.”

Bristol was born and raised in Waukon, Iowa, and received his journalism degree from UW in 1974. He was an award-winning photographer for more than 20 years, specializing in nature, agriculture and commercial fishing on the Upper Mississippi River. He was a daily newspaper photojournalist and also opened a photography studio and gallery in Sheridan.

Presentations from the 2018 fellowship winners were presented during the banquet honoring Bristol. Lindsey, a visual arts graduate, talked about her work, titled “They Came for Gold, They Stayed for Sheep: A History of the Basque People in Wyoming.” The other winner, Rodgers, a senior who plans to graduate in fall 2019, presented “Small Fish, Shallow Water: Protecting Wyoming’s Horneyhead Chub.”

Sharon Linhart, a journalism alumna and another fellowship donor, thanked those who were involved, especially those who participated in the fellowship program.

“Larsh would have so enjoyed knowing and connecting with you, the fellows, and the work that you’ve done, and the passion, vision and creativity,” Linhart says. “He would have appreciated the fact that you got up in the early morning hours and sat in a river to take pictures of a fish, or climbed mountains or put yourself in dangerous situations to tell stories through the visual medium that he was so good at and you all are so good at.”

The first winner, Joe Riis, a wildlife photographer and photography fellow for National Geographic magazine, attended the banquet. In 2008 he presented “Pronghorn Migration.”

The list of past fellowship winners are: 2009, Joshua King, “Bark Beetle Infestation in the Medicine Bow National Forest”; 2010, Lydia Renneisen Mullins, “Music in the Wind: Revealing the Diversity of Wyoming”; 2011, Jen Faulkner, “Reflections of a Cow Man’s Daughter”; 2012, Jordan Edgcomb, “Interactions Between the Maasai People and Tanzanian Wildlife”; and 2014, Manasseh Franklin, “Experiencing Ice.”

Also 2015, Wendy Perkins, “Telling My Story Because It Needs to Be Told”; 2015, Brandon Fritz, “The Beauty and Science Behind Wyoming’s Points of Interest”; 2016, Sydney Edwards, “Dance in Unlikely Places”; 2017, Will Wise, “In the Bed of A Truck: The Seasonal Housing Crisis in Jackson Hole.”

The fellowship awards a $5,000 stipend to a UW graduate or undergraduate student pursuing an interest in photojournalism. The 2019 call for proposals will be in February.

For more information about the Larsh Bristol Photojournalism Fellowship or about the display, email UW Department of Communication and Journalism Chair Cindy Price-Schultz at cprice@uwyo.edu.