For the first time since its inception in 2010, a Fort Campbell Soldier has won the Staff Sgt. James P. Hunter Award for Outstanding New Writer in the Maj. Gen. Keith L. Ware Public Affairs Competition.
Like Hunter, the recipient is part of the 2nd Brigade Combat Team, 101st Airborne Division.
Staff Sgt. Sierra Fown, 2nd BCT, is the latest recipient of the honor, named for the first Army journalist to die in combat in Afghanistan. The award recognizes excellence in Army journalism among Soldiers ranked staff sergeant or below, who have been in the Army Public Affairs career field for 24 months or less.
It is quite an honor for a Soldier who spent five of her six years in the Army as a Military Police officer.
“It’s a lot different from where I came from,” Fown said of her Public Affairs position. “The interview process is especially different, because I’m used to more of an interrogation type of interview.”
A potential career in law enforcement was what motivated Fown to join the Army in the first place.
“I used to dispatch for my local PD back in Pennsylvania,” she said. “I thought I wanted to be a cop, and the guys there told me I needed either a degree or I’d have to have some type of military experience. So I chose the military route because I wanted to move out of PA and get some new experiences.”
To receive the training that would prepare her for her future police career, Fown began her Army career as an MP. And it might be something she would still be doing to this day, if not for a small change in her life.
“I have a 4-year-old son,” Fown said. “It was really hard to keep that schedule that MPs have. It can be an all-night shift or a swing shift. It’s hard to try and find child care with that type of schedule, so I mainly reclassed for a better situation for me and my son.”
When her re-enlistment window opened up, Fown spoke with a retention noncommissioned officer in Afghanistan, hoping to receive some insight as to which field to go into for her next chapter in the Army. Touching on her interest in photography, the NCO suggested the Army journalist route.
“I actually had no interest in high school; I didn’t like to write,” Fown said. “If anything, this kind of showed me that I have more of an interest in writing than I thought, especially on topics I find interesting.”
Fown has been an active Army journalist for a little more than a year now. When the submission period began for the 2015 Keith L. Ware competition, she was encouraged by her NCOICs to submit her work for consideration. When she won awards at the FORSCOM level, she was pleasantly surprised. When she found out she had won a top writing honor for KLW, she was floored.
“It was definitely surprising to learn I had won a top honor,” she said. “But I had everybody rooting for me.”
It was a particular honor, she said, to receive an award named after a fellow Strike Soldier.
“If I could emulate in my work what it means to be a Strike Soldier and everything that [Hunter] did for this unit, then I’m content with that,” she said.
Her year of journalistic experience, and the confirmation that she has notable talent as a writer, has encouraged Fown to explore new career opportunities when she gets out of the Army.
“I think I want to go back to school and I want to take up journalism,” Fown said. “I really like what I do here, and I want to be able to take that and all of my training and bring it to the civilian world.”
