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December 2, 2004updated 22 Nov 2022 12:30pm

Student award salutes LEP favourite

By Press Gazette

The Lancashire Evening Post has set up a student journalism award to honour one of the paper’s favourite sons.

Alan Burgess, 44, died after a lengthy battle with cancer at his home in Preston in November 2003.

In remembrance of its former news editor, features editor and newspaper sales director, the LEP will present the Alan Burgess Award to the University of Central Lancashire’s top student journalist each year.

The winner will be announced at the end of the academic year in June and will also receive a cheque for £300.

The link up is the latest partnership forged between the Evening Post and UCLan. All journalism students at UCLan will be eligible to enter a portfolio of work for the award providing they have had at least one piece published by the LEP.

Judging for the award will take place in the spring by a panel, including LEP editor Simon Reynolds and journalism lecturers from the university.

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Alan Burgess started his newspaper career in 1979 when he joined the Hull Daily Mail in East Yorkshire as a reporter.

He moved to Preston in 1983 to join the Lancashire Evening Post, moving from senior reporter to education correspondent and then news editor.

The father of two also spent two years as features editor before making a break into newspaper sales as regional promotions and travel manager in 1997.

In April 1999 he became newspaper sales director and looked after the sales for the Lancashire Evening Post, the Wigan Evening Post and the Chorley Guardian .

But despite moving away from journalism in his later years he is remembered as a first class news man and for his hard-hitting weekly television column “Burgess On The Box”.

Reynolds said: “As well as being a smashing bloke Alan was a super journalist and any student seeking a career in newspapers could do a lot worse than aspire to the standards he set”

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