Linda Puntney

Linda Puntney began her career teaching at the high school level at Fort Osage High School, then William Chrisman High School. She taught classes such as Journalism I, Journalism II, English, Newspaper Production, and Yearbook Production as well as advised the yearbook and newspaper at both schools. She moved onto advising collegiate media at Northwest Missouri State, where she advised the yearbook and weekly newspaper and taught Feature Writing, Design, and Law and Ethics.

Puntney spent the majority of her career at one place, Kansas State. As Student Publications Director from 1989-2010, she advised the Royal Purple yearbook, directed the Flint Hills Publications Workshop, and oversaw five full-time staff members who worked with over 100 students to produce the Royal Purple and The Collegian newspaper and their accompanying projects. During this time, Puntney also worked as Executive Director of the Journalism Education Association overseeing JEA staff, working with committees for the two annual JEA conventions, and organizing summer Adviser Institutes. Puntney used all of her knowledge and experiences to teach classes such as Yearbook Editing and Management, Supervision of School Publications, Marketing for the Media, Intro to Public Relations, and Feature and Magazine Article Writing which produced Update magazine.

Puntney’s dedication to excellence and passion for teaching and advising has brought her much success over her career. The Royal Purple yearbook won a Pacemaker award nearly every year she was adviser. She taught her staffs the importance of documenting university history with journalistic integrity and how to produce a high quality yearbook. Her expertise on scholastic media and advising is still highly sought after, so we are lucky to have Puntney as such a close friend and big cheerleader of Collegian Media Group.

Glenn Kinley

Glenn Kinley grew up in Normal, Illinois. He moved to Kansas in the fall of 2017 to attend Kansas State University and earned a dual degree in Journalism and Entrepreneurship. He interned with KSNT in Topeka before his senior year, which turned into a part-time job in August 2020. One year later in August 2021, that part-time position turned into full-time before his promotion to Sports Director in April 2022.

Kinley has several things that are important to him in his life. The first is his faith and has been since he was a senior in college and began following Jesus Christ. Other things include family, friends and… shocker here… SPORTS! Sports have always been a big part of his life since he grew up playing, watching and attending sporting events. The opportunity to cover sporting events and call it work is beyond a dream come true for Kinley.

Kinley thinks his pathway from intern to Sports Director is a testament to his loyalty to stay in one place consistently and his hard work to continually gain the confidence in his boss and co-workers. Kinley also helped launch a 30-minute weekly sports special on KSNT, which was new to the station. With the help of some other hard workers by his side, they took off with this show and turned it into something they’re really proud of. He has also assisted the sports team in taking more initiative in driving pageviews to their website. Kinley loves his job and looks forward to telling the members of this workshop more about his experiences!

Penny J. Wika

Penny J. Wika earned her undergraduate degree from Kearney State College where she was editor of the yearbook for two years. Her Master of Arts degree in Journalism is from Texas Tech. She has been employed as a professional journalist working primarily at daily and weekly newspapers and as a professional educator, teaching journalism and serving as the publications adviser at four high schools and two junior colleges. During her 17 years at Manhattan High School, Wika’s students retired two KSPA 6A traveling trophies for winning sweepstakes three consecutive years. Wika has won numerous writing awards herself from the Kansas Press Association and the Kansas Professional Communicators, including one sweepstakes award. Her proudest accomplishment was being named to the KSPA Journalism Teachers Hall of Fame.