Best of CASE District III Award
 

Institution: The University of North Carolina General Alumni Association

Title of entry: Lend Me Your Ears and I'll Sing You a Song

About this entry: This feature ran on the 50th anniversary of the iconic music festival Jubilee, held at UNC Chapel Hill from 1963 to 1971, and captures a turbulent time in the nation’s history at the university. The article’s colorful details and characters come alive and speak both to alumni who were there and to younger graduates still decades from being born. The enthusiasm and love of the festival comes through in a memorable sidebar on the experience (mostly drug-induced) of comedian Lewis Black, a 1970 UNC graduate. His palatable reverence for the concerts and what they said about a difficult time in American history is why the Review editors gave the story such play. The story was not only told through the performers — Charlie Byrd, Johnny Cash, The Temptations, Neil Diamond, James Taylor, Chuck Berry, The Allman Brothers, to name just a few — but also the student organizers, some of whom credit the experience for their later careers at major news organizations, in directing and acting, and on Broadway. One student planner would go on to win four Emmys as a cameraman. The feature relies heavily on archived documents and photography, which all tell their own story in artful spreads that take the reader on a time machine back to the 1960s.