Former Southeastern Channel news anchor-reporter Erika Ferrando has won a prestigious 2019 Edward R. Murrow Award for her remarkable story on Pottsville, Ark. teenager Drake Maness who was told he would never walk again after a swimming accident. An Emmy-nominated television journalist, Ferrando won the Murrow award for Feature Reporting given by the Radio Television Digital News Association (RTDNA) in Region 9 made up of television stations in Louisiana, Arkansas, Alabama and Mississippi. Now a news reporter for WWL-TV (CBS) Ch. 4 in New Orleans (DMA 50), Ferrando produced the winning story while working as a reporter at KTHV (CBS) Ch. 11 in Little Rock, Ark. (DMA 57). Earlier this year Ferrando won her second straight Associated Press Broadcasters Award for “Solo Journalist” in the Arkansas-Oklahoma region for her story “Moved to Mow.” A former news reporter, anchor and producer for the Southeastern Channel’s student newscast, “Northshore News”, Ferrando graduated from Southeastern in 2014 when she was named the Louisiana Association of Broadcasters’ first-ever “Louisiana Student Broadcaster of the Year” out of all college TV and radio students in the state. A Mandeville native, Ferrando’s first job after graduation was as a news reporter for KPLC-TV (NBC) Ch. 7 in Lake Charles, La. (DMA 172). At the Southeastern Channel, Ferrando also won “Best in the South” recognition for news reporting from the Southeast Journalism Conference (eight states) and Mark of Excellence awards for news reporting from the Society of Professional Journalists.