Jewell Ryan-White Award for Cultural Diversity

The Jewell Ryan-White Award for Cultural Diversity is given annually to those persons who show an outstanding contribution to a process that encourages, facilitates, or creates culturally diverse and/or non-mainstream community involvement in the field of community media.

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2020 Winner: Kathryn "katMeow" garcia, Open SIgnal, POrtland Community media center

Kathryn “KatMeow” García is a bilingual Media Educator and current Manager of Community Media Advocacy at Open Signal, Portland Community Media Center. They work with instructors and volunteers to support media education curriculum that engages creativity, values equity and provides access to industry standard production equipment and software.

KatMeow is an Executive Director for the Girl Game Gang; a small production company that recruits mainly BIPOC lady and non-binary identified emerging film industry professionals. 

Katmeow is also part of the Thurston County Santo Tomás Sister City Association. KatMeow has served as a delegate for TSTSCA working, teaching and living in Nicaragua to learn more about self-sustaining non-profits in Nicaragua and share about similar nonprofit structures in the US. 

KatMeow volunteers for the local Sexual Assault Resource Center (SARC) as a peer support for survivors and The Healing Circle VOCA Camp for youth survivors.

KatMeow currently serves as the President of The KBOO Foundation and is Liaison to the Development Committee. 

KatMeow is a graduate of The Evergreen State College, and earned a BFA in Film and a minor in Social Justice. They hold a Small Business certificate from University of International Business and Economics, Beijing China. In their spare time they are a producer, painter, writer, singer, gardener and an activist.  

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List of Winners by Year

2020 - Kathryn "KatMeow" Garcia
2019 - Shannon Gee, Seattle Channel
2018 - Tia Price
2017 - T-Time in Olympia (Presented to producers Staci Layton, Amy Layton, Lucas Miller, and Melissa Miller)
2016 - Bepsie Perry, Hello! West Hartford
2015 – Jennifer Dynes, MetroEast Community Media
2014 - Chag Lowry, Native Cultures Fund, part of the Humboldt Area Foundation
2013 – Kim Lawson, CreaTV San Jose
2012 – Kwame McDonald, St. Paul Neighborhood Network
2010 – Richard Rosenthal
2009 – Cherie Tessier
2008 – Graciela Rivera Oven
2007 – Michael Zinzin
2006 – Edmund Broussard, Berkeley Community Media
2005 – Malkia Cyril
2004 – Thenmozhi Sondararajan
2003 – Tarek Bagdadi, Minneapolis Telecommunications Network
2002 – Onida Coward-Mayers
2001 – Azaka Ajanaku
2000 – Ben and Sue Charles – Native Media (Tacoma, Washington)
1999 – Richard Turner
1998 – CeCe Pinheiro
1997 – Fernando Moreno
1996 – Rick Maultra
1995 – Maggie Johnson-Reese
1994 – Curtis Henderson
1993 – Jewell Ryan-White