Now in her 11th year as an associate professor at the Missouri School of Journalism, Maggie Walter is not ready to stop.
She is, however, more than willing to take some time to reflect on how far she has come. She was recently awarded the Outstanding Journalism Alumna Award by her alma mater, Ball State University.
In response to the award, Walter said she was “stunned and very happy.”
####Starting journalism
Walter said she has always loved to read and write, and her passion for journalism was evident at an early age.
“When I was in third grade, I got selected to be the class reporter for the high school paper and I got paid the princely sum of a nickel per month, which I promptly squandered on buying the paper,” she said.
That passion, Walter said, was sparked early on by her uncles, who were all storytellers.
“We (also) got two daily newspapers in our house, so it was just an atmosphere of the news mattering.”
Walter went on to be the editor of her high school newspaper before enrolling at Ball State University for her undergraduate studies.
Walter said she graduated early with her bachelor’s degree and decided to pursue more education.
“There was an opening in the graduate teaching program and then I ended up getting my master’s (degree),” she said. “When I was finishing my master’s, they had an opening on the faculty so I filled in as the advisor to the college newspaper for a couple quarters, and then finally I went out and got a job.”
Walter worked at several Indiana newspapers before moving to Nashua, New Hampshire, where she served as editor at The Nashua Telegraph from 1986 to 2000.
During her time with The Nashua Telegraph, Walter said she oversaw a journalistic project called Hitting Home, which focused on domestic abuse. The project’s coverage eventually led to a change in domestic abuse laws in New Hampshire, Walter said.
####Moving to MU
Walter said she has made it a personal priority to help out journalists she has worked with. She was able to combine this goal with another passion she has: teaching.
In 2003, Walter received an offer that she could not turn down: when MU asked her to be a professor at the Missouri School of Journalism.
Walter accepted the offer and remains an associate professor of print and digital news at the School Journalism, and serves as an interactive news editor at the Columbia Missourian.
“Coming here was just a more formalized extension of what I had been doing,” Walter said.
Walter said while there are some differences between teaching at MU and working in the field, she has no plans to go anywhere else
“I’m planning to retire from this place someday,” she said.
Laura Johnston, senior editor of the Columbia Missourian, said Walter consistently moves the school ahead with its AP coverage, and even added the Show Me The Errors feature to the publication’s website.
“She’s able to give real-world answers,” Johnston said. “I know that she’s done a lot for us as a school, so I think it’s fitting that she got recognized by her alma mater.”
However, Johnston is not the only one to notice the contributions Walter has made to both the Columbia Missourian and the students she teaches.
“She’s an emissary for copy editing,” said Tom Warhover, executive editor at the Columbia Missourian and associate professor at the School of Journalism, [in a news release](http://journalism.missouri.edu/2014/04/associate-professor-maggie-walter-receives-outstanding-journalism-alumna-award-ball-state-university/).
####The real passion
Walter’s recent award is only one of many she has to her name. However, she said her motives are rooted in the pride she takes in her job and journalism, not the accolades.
Much less shy than she said she used to be and always growing in her knowledge about journalism, Walter said she is perfectly content with where she is right now, and will always grow in her journalistic knowledge.
“I’ll always be involved in journalism in some way,” she said. “It is my life.”