HOPE SMITH
managing editor
hope.smith393@my.tccd.edu

Eddye Gallagher, a former director of student publications at TCC, was inducted during the TIPA convention in Fort Worth, Texas. 

The Collegian joined other student press from across Texas to participate in the three-day convention where workshops and live competitions were offered as a chance for journalists to gain experience and knowledge. 

On the second day, a luncheon was held as an induction ceremony for the yearly TIPA hall of fame. 

To decide the next hall of fame inductee, there is a committee of officers who take nominations and review them and make their decision. For Gallagher, she was stunned when she received an email a week before telling her of her induction.

“I was just calmly going through my mail and there it was,” she said.

Gallagher started out as a journalism teacher at TCC at the age of 22 and moved on to teach English, but after the position for the director of student publications opened up she took on the job and ended up working there for 47 years. 

Along with that, Gallagher also acted as TIPA president.

“It truly does mean a lot when you are recognized by people that you respect, and I have spent a lot of time with this organization,” she said.

She said she loved the work, the people and helping others the way she had been helped. 

“There were so many people here that I just love so much, and people before me helped me out. You know, Dorothy was my mentor,” she said. “So of course, I turned to her more because she was my mentor in high school, but there were other people too that helped. Then I helped other people.”

As she helped the people in the organization, she said she wanted to repay others kindness as she had been shown. She made sure that if she saw advisors struggling that she offered help and recalled what her mother taught her.

“My mother also always told me, you know, if you see something that needs to be done, do it,” she said.

In total, the Collegian members earned 24 awards spanning multiple different subjects for student press. TJ Favela, head illustrator, earned first place in the editorial cartoon live competition.

The Collegian editor-in-chief Alex Hoben won four awards. She was particularly excited for one of them, Photojournalist of the Year, and said she had high hopes prior to earning it.

“I wasn’t sure that I would get it because you can never be sure,” she said. “You can work as hard as you want, and I work as hard as I can. But I’m never going to be completely sure I’m going to get something, especially when there are so many good journalists in Texas. So I didn’t know, and I was very happy to see that I did.”

Hoben previously won the Eddye Gallagher Award offered at TCC, which is a journalism award in Gallagher’s name, and said Gallagher was very deserving of the TIPA award.

“Her passion for Texas journalism and student journalists is remarkable and it’s admirable,” she said. “I’m very happy she got the opportunity to be inducted into it.”