Hello! We're making one last update to OU Student Media's 2016-17 Thousands Strong fundraising campaign to let you know (just in case you missed it) that we're at it again. 

We've got a new campaign going for 2018-19, prompted in part our need to get Oklahoma Daily and Sooner yearbook students to the Orange Bowl this month to cover the Sooners' run for another national football title. Response has been very strong so far, but we've set a new stretch goal of $8,000 ... which means we've got about three weeks to raise the remaining $2,500.

Your support was valuable two years ago, but the need to give our students these coverage and training opportunities is always present. And it grows even greater as our reputation for excellence grows and we attract more and more talented students to the unique experience we offer. It's an experience that's made possible by the generosity and enthusiasm of our alumni and other friends.

Visit our 2018-19 Thousands Strong campaign page, if you haven't already. Consider a gift of as little as $5. And especially consider sharing this great cause with your friends and family on Facebook and Twitter, so we reach as many people as possible.

Thank you so much, once again. It warms our hearts to know we can count on you.

Best,

Nick Jungman

Director, OU Student Media

The Sugar Bowl is complete, our crews are headed home and we want to take a moment to say thank you.

Support from this fundraising project helped finance the trip for six students -- below (from left) Spenser Davis, sports editor; Kelli Stacy, sports reporter; Jesse Pound, assistant sports editor; Siandhara Bonnet, photo editor; Julia Harth, photographer; and Derek Peterson, sports reporter -- during their stay in New Orleans.

Their six-night trip capped off a season in which we covered every game, drove more than 600,000 sports page views for the season, wrote national level enterprise, and generated praise like this from their professional peers. 

As I told them after the game last night, I bet they'll soon feel what I always do on the season's last night: Exhausted. Sad it's over. Grateful for the run. 

Thank you again for your part in helping to enrich our students' experiences.

Seth Prince Digital and design adviser, OU Student Media Editorial adviser, Sooner yearbook

We went right down the wire, but we wrapped up by midnight just over our goal at $5,010! Heartfelt thanks to everyone who gave to the project and shared the link to it.

We'll keep you updated as we spend the funds on the trips we've outlined. First up is our sports team's trip to the Sugar Bowl next week, where they'll wrap up a season of fantastic Sooner football coverage. Stay tuned to OUDaily.com for that, and of course we'll chronicle the whole season in Sooner yearbook, too (which you can pre-order at SoonerYearbook.com).

In the meantime, even though this project is closed, you can always make a contribution to our OU Foundation fund. In addition to student travel, money in the fund helps us replace and add equipment, such as cameras, multimedia technology and computers. There's an online gift portal at OUFoundation.org — please specify "Student Media Staff Development" as the target fund.

Once again, thank you for helping us make this fundraising project a success — and for your continued investment in our students' experience and their future careers.

Sincerely, Nick Jungman, Director of OU Student Media

We are so close. We have just $860 to go to fully fund our OU Student Media student travel project. But our deadline is midnight CST ... less than 10 hours from now.

If you've already given, please consider sharing our project on Facebook or Twitter — http://thousandsstrong.ou.edu/studentmedia. If you haven't given, you can be among those who help put us over the top if you act today.

Remember, it's a great cause. The money will helps us get Oklahoma Daily and Sooner yearbook students to the Sugar Bowl and to a series of training events over the coming 12 months. 

Thanks for your help!

http://thousandsstrong.ou.edu/studentmedia

We've got just three days left in the "Put Student Media on the Road" campaign, and we still have about $1,500 to go. Help put us over the top by sharing our campaign with friends, family and colleagues over the weekend. 

Here's the campaign page: http://thousandsstrong.ou.edu/studentmedia

We can do it! Remember: These funds will help us send our sports staffs to the Sugar Bowl in a couple of weeks, and our journalism and advertising staffs to two important training events in 2017. Help us send as many students as possible!

Director's note: I've asked the OU Daily sports editor, Spenser Davis, to talk about the traveling he's done for OU Student Media and his preparations for the Sugar Bowl. — nj

One of my favorite things to do is travel. I enjoy long road trips and tolerate plane rides all in the name of seeing something beyond my tiny corner of this country. One of the ways I’ve accomplished this at college is through working with The Oklahoma Daily. 

In two years covering the football team and one year covering the men’s basketball team, I’ve traveled to Texas (seven times), Tennessee, Florida, Missouri, Iowa, California, Kansas and West Virginia. That includes a College Football Playoff game, OU’s late comeback win in Knoxville, the Sooners’ “snow globe game” against West Virginia, the game of the year in college basketball in 2016 and every NCAA Tournament round from last season. And in a few short weeks, we’ll be headed to New Orleans for the 2017 Sugar Bowl. 

Not only has it been a blast to cover the Sooners from these locations, but it’s been hugely important for my career. Having bylines from all over the country on the biggest stages in college sports will give me a big advantage over other applicants as I search for internships and jobs. It’s also helped our sports desk gain respect from our audience as well as the people who cover OU sports professionally.

Without the continued support from OU Student Media, these trips simply wouldn’t be possible. We wouldn’t be able to cover the Sooners from every direction, and we’d be at an immediate disadvantage in our coverage. I want future generations of Daily staffers to have these experiences — that’s why this campaign is so important. The next generation of student reporters should be able to have the same experiences and to learn in the same tough, competitive environments that we have been afforded.

Although it’s not a class, these experiences have been integral in my education at the University of Oklahoma. I hope you will consider the monumental impact you can have on young people’s careers by donating to this campaign.

— Spenser Davis

We've just passed the $3,500 mark in our campaign to Put OU Student Media on the Road. Thanks to everyone who has contributed! 

You can help us get that last $1,500 by sharing our campaign page with your friends, family and other OU boosters via Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and other social streams. We've got 12 days to get to our goal. If we can crush the goal, it means we can send more students to coverage and training opportunities around the country in the coming year.

Please share!

At this writing, our campaign, "Put OU Student Media on the Road!" is at 63 percent of our goal with 21 days to go. Thanks to everyone who has contributed so far!

One of the first projects we hope to fund with this money is our coverage of the Sooner football postseason. Last season, Student Media agreed to commit the funds so that the OU Daily and Sooner sports staffs could cover every away football game, through the postseason. Last year, that meant a trip to the College Football Playoff semifinal in Florida. 

This year, we are trying to do the same, and that has so far included traveling to Morgantown to play West Virginia — not drivable, not cheap. We'll see what this year's postseason holds. The Sugar Bowl is much talked about, but even though New Orleans is relatively close, it is not inexpensive to get there or to stay there. An ideal situation has our students staying in the same hotel with all the other media covering the game, and that's a substantial financial commitment in any city. 

Our students' work for OU Daily has gained the respect of regional and national news media covering the Sooners. Help us make sure we can continue to offer our students this opportunity — especially in the postseason, when their work has an even greater national audience than usual.

Thanks in advance for anything you can give! If you've already given, please share our Thousands Strong campaign page with your friends and family, especially Sooner football fans!