The Sacramento Press Club has selected five journalists this year to honor for their outstanding career achievement and strong commitment to journalism in the Sacramento region: Scott Rodd, Rich Pedroncelli, Ginger Rutland, Jim Stimson and Erika Smith.
The scholarships in their names will range from $4,000 to $8,000.

Scott Rodd covers state government and wildfire policy for CapRadio, the NPR station in Sacramento. He earned the Sacramento Press Club’s 2021 Journalist of the Year award for “investigating and holding power to account in a role that also demands breaking news.” Scott was also named to Capitol Weekly’s “Top 100” list of people who shaped California policy in 2021. His work has appeared in the Washington Post, NPR, the New York Times, Salon, Washington City Paper and the Sacramento Business Journal. When he’s not reporting, Scott can be found playing tennis, surfing or hanging out with his dog Muno.




The Sacramento Press Club also awards three scholarships each year that are permanently named for these honorees:

Nereida Skelton was a teacher at McClatchy and Kennedy high schools in Sacramento for 33 years. Her core job was teaching English, but her true calling was journalism, public speaking, and debate. Skelton took particular pride in the student newspapers she advised, including the McClatchy Prospector. She passed away in 2012 and her family supports the Sacramento Press Scholarship in her honor.

Dan Walters has been a journalist for nearly 60 years, spending all but a few of those years working for California newspapers. He began his professional career in 1960, at age 16, at the Humboldt Times in Eureka, while still attending high school. He was editor of the Hanford Sentinel before joining the Sacramento Union’s Capitol bureau in 1975 and began writing a column that he continued at the Sacramento Bee from 1984 to 2017. He now is a columnist for CalMatters.

Jerry Gillam was a longtime state government reporter who worked for the Los Angeles Times from 1961 until his retirement in 1995. He spent much of his career covering the California Assembly and saw the Legislature become a full-time body with passage of a ballot measure in 1966. Gillam passed away in 2009 and his family supports the Sacramento Press Club Scholarship in his honor.