(This story was first published in JEA’s 1999 Vision calendar as part of the organization’s 75th anniversary celebration.)

In 1986 Hilda Walker received the Carl Towley award in recognition of her service with the Write-off Commission. It was service that spanned nearly 20 years and formed the foundation for the National Student Media Contests of today.

Hilda Walker was involved in JEA Write-offs from the beginning.

When the board moved to standardize these visible and popular contests, it formed a commission which met at Lake Tahoe Memorial Day weekend 1978. Hilda a middle school teacher from Stockton, California, was part of the group. The commission met annually for three summers, updating and studying surveys for adviser and student input. In 1981 Hilda took over as chair of the commission and held the position until 1996.

For all the years in between, she ran the growing contests, updating the book periodically, organizing handouts, marshalling the volunteer moderators and judges and producing the stack of certificates for the Sunday awards ceremony. She was often in charge of the judges’ gifts, filling hundreds of mugs with candy over the years.

“One reason the committee worked so hard and put in so many hours to make the Write-offs work, was to see how they gave the contestants a sense of a job well-done,” Walker said in 1999.