Farmington High senior Johanna Wolkoff is the 2020 winner of the Bo Kolinsky Memorial Sports Journalism Scholarship from the Connecticut Sports Writers’ Alliance. (Joan Winner photo courtesy of Winner Photography)
FARMINGTON, March 31, 2020 – Farmington High senior Johanna Wolkoff has been selected as the 2020 of the Bo Kolinsky Memorial Sports Journalism Scholarship from the Connecticut Sports Writers’ Alliance.
The award of $3,000 is presented in honor of Kolinsky, the late Hartford Courant sportswriter who died unexpectedly in 2003. Wolkoff will be recognized as the Alliance’s 79th annual Gold Key awards banquet on Sunday, June 14 at the Aqua Turf in Southington.
Wolkoff has been involved with student journalism at Farmington High since her freshman year. As a sophomore, she was the sports editor of The Voice, the school’s student newspaper. She served as the paper’s managing editor as a junior and is the paper’s editor-in-chief as a senior. She is also anchoring the sports updates on the school’s weekly news broadcasts.
Recently, The Voice was honored with an award from the Columbia Scholastic Press Association.
Wolkoff attended the selective School of The New York Times journalism program last summer. A top student, she was a senior captain for the field hockey and softball teams. She will continue her education at the University of Maryland.
Gold Key Award recipients for 2020 are five legendary scholastic coaches: Cookie Bromage (Enfield field hockey), Joe Grippo (Morgan girls volleyball and girls basketball), Lou Milardo (Hale-Ray softball), Ricky Shook (Danbury wrestling) and Angela Tammaro (Greenwich Academy field hockey and lacrosse). Baseball Hall of Fame honoree Claire Smith, 2017 recipient of the J.G. Taylor Spink Award, will receive the President’s Award.
The Gold Key Dinner was inaugurated in 1940, with baseball legend Connie Mack and golf superstar Bobby Jones among the initial recipients.
The roster of honorees since then reads like a Who’s Who of Connecticut sports – Joe Cronin, Julius Boros, Willie Pep, Lindy Remigino, Floyd Little, Joan Joyce, Otto Graham, Calvin Murphy, Gordie Howe, Bill Rodgers, Geno Auriemma, Rebecca Lobo, Brian Leetch, Kristine Lilly, Marlon Starling, Dwight Freeney and ESPN founder Bill Rasmussen are just a few of the past Gold Key winners. A complete list is available at www.ctsportswriters.com.
Tickets to the Gold Key Dinner are $75 apiece, and may be reserved by contacting CSWA President Tim Jensen of Patch Media Corp. at [email protected]. Proceeds from the event benefit the scholarship fund.
