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“We found out almost 10 years ago, that my wife is gene positive for something called Huntington's Disease, which is a genetic neuro degenerative disease best described as having ALS and Alzheimer's and Parkinson's all rolled into one.”

Scott Porter
The “face” of Heroclix on YouTube

Please find enclosed Cooper Townsend’s entry for the Student Murrow for Excellence in Audio Feature Reporting for “Alabama Gamers Help Fight Huntington’s Disease with Heroclix.”

Please click here to listen to the content... https://www.apr.org/news/2025-07-10/alabama-gamers-help-fight-huntingtons-disease-with-heroclix

Townsend traveled to Huntsville for an unusual fundraiser. Players of the board game Heroclix gathered for matches, while raising money for research into Huntington’s disease. This includes gaming celebrity Scott Porter, whose wife is gene positive for the neuro degenerative disease.

This piece aired during July, which would have included the one hundred and thirteenth birthday of folksinger Woodie Guthrie. The composer of classic folk hits like “This Land is Your Land” suffered from Huntington’s.

Heroclix gets its name from the board pieces players use. Each represents a superhero like Spiderman or Batman. After each move, the base of each piece is turned until it “clicks,” and deprives that hero of a superpower.

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“I mean, this enormous tragedy of Charlie Kirk being assassinated. And you know, what did Charlie Kirk do? He made a lot of arguments. He talked upset people. He said things people disagreed with.”

Jimmy Wales
Founder, Wikipedia           

Please find attached, Alabama Public Radio’s entry for SPJ’s John C. Ensslin Award for Podcast Excellence: Conversational Podcast Episode, “APR Notebook: Jimmy Wales, Wikipedia, and what happened to Charlie Kirk.”

Please click here to listen to the program.
https://www.apr.org/podcast/apr-notebook/2025-12-03/jimmy-wales-wikipedia-and-what-happened-to-charlie-kirk

Wales grew up in Huntsville in the 1960’s, in the shadow of the Apollo manned moon landings. He also spent hours making corrections to his family’s hardbound World Book encyclopedia. That helped inspire Wales to create the website Wikipedia, that attracts billions of visitors every month. The online encyclopedia, which is constantly updated by volunteer editors, also has its critics including Elon Musk. Wikipedia is accused of leaning left, and for having fewer female and African American editors.

Supporters of Wikipedia include Belarus’ so-called “President in exile” Svetlana Tsikhanouskaya. She reportedly won her election in the former Soviet nation. But, incumbent Alexander Lukashenko claimed fraud, seized power, and established what’s considered the last dictatorship in Europe. Authoritarian regimes appear to dislike Wikipedia since its online editors are difficult to track down and arrest. Wales joined me on “APR Notebook” to talk about that, and his new book “The Seven Rules of Trust,” about the philosophy behind Wikipedia. He insists that if we don’t talk to people we disgree with, the result could be violence. Wales used the assassination of conservative activist Charlie Kirk as an example.

Alabama is known for its role in the civil rights movement, college football, and “white” barbecue sauce. But the state is also home to Pulitzer Prize winning writers and helped put astronauts on the moon. “APR Notebook” features interviews with guests ranging from Huntsville’s Jimmy Wales who created Wikipedia, and six-time Grammy winning singer and songwriter Jason Isbell.

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“They claim that everyone is created equal, but they don't treat people equally. And that, I think, is the way we've, at least I've been educated about like the civil rights,”

Benjamin Lundgal
University of Southern Denmark

Please find enclosed Alabama Public Radio’s entry for the Murrow award for Best Series, titled “…a death, a bridge, and a seat on the bus.” The Alabama Public Radio spent eleven months chronicling three critical anniversaries in the state’s civil rights history.

The APR news team produced this project, without a budget.

Please click here to listen to the program.
https://www.apr.org/award-entries/2025-12-14/a-death-a-bridge-and-a-seat-on-the-bus-an-apr-news-series

2025 marked sixty years since civil rights activist Jimmie Lee Jackson was shot twice by an Alabama State Trooper on February 18, 1965. APR listeners heard from eighty-eight-year-old Vera Jenkins-Booker, the nurse at Good Samaritan Hospital who was with Jackson for the eight days before he died.

His death sparked voting rights marchers to cross the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma, where police on horseback attacked them with billy clubs and tear gas. The incident became known as “bloody Sunday.” Most of the marchers captured in black and white film that day appeared to be adults, but many of the protesters were teenagers. APR Gulf coast correspondent Lynn Oldshue spoke with Jeanette Howard-Moore and Diane Harris, who were school students caught up in the attack.

Americans aren’t the only ones studying events like “bloody Sunday,” the Montgomery Bus Boycott, and the work of Rosa Parks and Doctor Martin Luther King. Junior. Europeans are watching, too. APR correspondent James Niiler covers stories from his hometown of Aarhus, Denmark that have impact in Alabama. He assembled a focus group of five students majoring in American Studies at the University of Southern Denmark to hear their frank assessment of Alabama’s civil rights record.

2025 is also the seventieth anniversary of the Montgomery Bus Boycott. Rosa Parks, who sparked the event is familiar to Danish young people. But, there’s more to her story that refusing to give up her seat to a white bus passenger. APR Gulf coast correspondent Cori Yonge visited the Rosa Parks Museum where an effort is under to tell the story of the civil rights icon, and to lobby the Library of Congress to relocate materials related to Parks to the city where the boycott took place.

Our series wraps up with remembrances from two people on the “front lines” of the Montgomery Bus Boycott that helped make Dr. Martin Luther King, Junior an international figure. APR student reporter Torin Daniel used never-before-heard archival audio from 2018 interviews with Fred Gray and Nelson Malden. Gray was the attorney to Dr. King and Rosa Parks and Malden was MLK’s barber. Gray recalls the planning process that went into the boycott and how King was the last of three names under consideration to lead the effort. Malden remembered the day, from the window of his barber, the day the boycott began.

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“The greatest planning idea for an event was the planning that Joanne (Robinson) and I made in her living room for the Montgomery bus boycott.”

Fred Gray
Attorney to Rosa Parks and MLK

Please find enclosed Torin Daniel’s entry for the Student Murrow for Excellence in Audio Feature Reporting” for “…an insider’s view of the Montgomery Bus Boycott.”

Please click here to listen to the content...https://www.apr.org/news/2025-12-11/an-insiders-view-of-the-montgomery-bus-boycott

Daniel features two people on the “front lines” of the Montgomery Bus Boycott that helped make Dr. Martin Luther King, Junior an international figure. This story used never-before-heard audio with Fred Gray. The attorney for Rosa Parks and MLK recalls the planning process that went into the boycott and how King was the last of three names under consideration to lead the effort.

APR Listeners also heard from MLK’s barber Nelson Malden. He recalled the day, from the window of his barber shop, the day the boycott began.

Respectfully submitted.