Communications students selected for Scripps Howard internship program

Sierra Ferrier, Kevin Ridge, Al Drago and Cristina Crawford will receive $3,000 summer grants.

Four students in the School of Communications have been selected to be in the Scripps Howard Foundation’s 2013 Internship and Scholarship Program this summer.

Each student will receive a $3,000 summer grant along with a $500 scholarship for the fall semester. Elon is one of 37 partner schools selected to sponsor four scholarship recipients, with two multimedia interns and two new media entrepreneurship interns this year.

Elon is the first school to pilot a media entrepreneurship internship for students. Sierra Ferrier ’14 and Kevin Ridge ’14 will be working at Comcast DreamIt Ventures, a media and technology accelerator program in New York City. DreamIt Ventures works with early-stage entrepreneurs through one-on-one mentorship, business connections and investor opportunities, and basic funding to help new businesses become successful.

Two Elon students also have been selected for multimedia internships this summer. Al Drago ’15 will be a photography and multimedia intern at the News & Observer in Raleigh, N.C. Cristina Crawford ’14 will be a multimedia intern at the news desk and visual desk at the U.S. Navy Office of Information.

Ferrier is a strategic communications major who intends to start an event planning business. She previously interned at Martha Stewart’s Sirius XM radio channel and Yep Roc! Records. She is currently in her second year as general manager of WSOE-FM 89.3 student radio and head of artists and records for Limelight Records, a student music label she helped start.

Ridge is a communication science major with a passion for film. Ridge already has written several scripts and is in the process of making his first film with a small production company. He has been interested in entrepreneurship and already has started his own company, RapDNA, a hip-hop aggregator and promotional tool for up-and-coming artists.

Drago is a journalism major who has interned at the Durham Herald-Sun, Burlington Times-News and the Independent Weekly. He is currently photo editor of The Pendulum student newspaper and vice president of the Elon chapter of the National Press Photographers Association. His work has appeared in The Washington Post, ESPN.com and the Miami Herald through The Associated Press.

Crawford is a strategic communications major who interned in Washington, D.C., last summer at the public relations firm Story Partners, where she gained experience and knowledge of working on everyday public relations tasks. Crawford is a member of Lambda Pi Eta, the communications honor society, and is on the public relations committee of her sorority Zeta Tau Alpha.