The 15th annual Student Fund silent auction and raffle was held on Friday, June 22, during the AHP “Fiesta del Caballo” Seminar in Albuquerque, New Mexico.

The Student Fund began in 1993 as a way for members to support the Student Award program. A total of $4,358 was raised this year – $3,837 from the silent auction and $521 from raffle ticket and pin sales. All proceeds benefit the Student Award Contest, which rewards a student pursuing a career in equine publishing with a $1,000 cash award and an all-expense-paid trip to the annual AHP seminar. The Student Fund also provides complimentary student membership and seminar registration certificates to all Student Award applicants, and supports the AHP Student Mentoring Program and Internship Handbook.

Publishers Press, Inc., Shepherdsville, KY, also presents the winner with an all expenses paid trip to one of their Two-Day Customer Education Seminars. The Two-Day Customer Education Seminars are held in Louisville, Kentucky, and are designed to help customers’ production employees gain an understanding of how a magazine progresses through the printing process.

Nicole Lanphear, a journalism major at Western Washington University in Bellingham, Washington, with a 3.78 GPA, claimed the 2007 Student Award title over 19 other applicants. “Growing up as the kid who would rather play with ponies and write stories about it, it was inevitable that I would end up as an equine journalist,” she says. Nicole is currently the editor-in-chief for the college newspaper, The Western Front. She also freelances for the Northwest Horse Source, Whatcom Magazine and Bellingham Business Journal. Her plans are to continue to freelance and write for horse publications with the goal of bringing her skills as a news reporter and investigative reporter to the realm of equestrian journalism