If you were watching WMUR news (out of Manchester, NH) on Oct. 24, you probably saw Amy Augustine ’07, reporting live from Instanbul on the recent earthquake in Turkey. Augustine graduated from Keene State with a degree in journalism and political science and went to work at the Concord Monitor as a news intern. She rose from there to become a regional reporter and then became the editor of the Concord Insider, the Monitor’s weekly supplement.

She stayed at the Monitor about four years and just recently took a job writing and copy editing for Hurriyet Daily News and Economic Review, the oldest current English-language daily in Istanbul. “It’s a great paper and Istanbul is a fun city,” Augustine reports. “Turkey is an exciting place to be right now because it’s a growing regional power in the Middle East and a strategically important country. I’m doing my best to learn Turkish but the job can be very taxing. Anyway, I plan to stay here for about a year before I go back to the states to get married. My fiance, unfortunately, couldn’t join me because of his commitment to the family business, Grappone Automotive Group in Bow.”

Remember Amy? Drop her a line and make sure to invite her to campus when she gets stateside.

KSC alumna Michelle Trigila Marion ’98 has been chosen as the 2011 Connecticut Assistant Principal of the Year. The Connecticut Association of Schools chose Marion, who is assistant principal at East Hartford High School, to represent the state and travel to an awards banquet in March to Washington, D.C., along with her counterparts from other states. The honorees will also be offered professional development programs and networking opportunities at the banquet.

Read all about it in the Hartford Courant.

Dare I ask if anyone remembers the old TV Western, The Guns of Will Sonnet? Com’on, it wasn’t that long ago. Anyway, the main character was a tough old timer who would warn his opponents that he was the fastest gun alive. “No brag, just fact,” he would add.

I often think of that line when faced with a remarkable achievement. Several of our recent grads have gone on to notable careers in the sciences and arts, and they credit their education here for getting them where they are today. The Office of Sponsored Projects & Research has collected several of those stories, and they’re well worth reading as testimonies of the very talented students KSC attracts and the excellent instruction they receive here. No brag, just fact.

Abe Osheyack ’06 recently landed a position as sports information director at Smith College.  A journalism major, Abe worked with KSC sports information coordinator Stuart Kaufman from 2003–2006, when the seeds for success were planted.

“Working at Keene State opened my eyes to a field that I never knew existed.  It’s a field that combines my two loves: sports and writing,” says Abe.

More information from the Smith press release.

Chelsea Converse ’08 has hired on as communications samurai at North Star Marketing, a marketing and public relations firm in Providence, R.I. She was a communications major with a minor in studio art at KSC.

What’s a communications samurai? According to the company’s press release, Chelsea will lay the groundwork for North Star’s campaign strategy development and implementation – problem solving and contributing creative ideas while managing myriad moving parts on behalf of the firm’s account-service team.

For more information, here’s North Star’s press release.