Faiz Siddiqui of UNL placed first in the Hearst feature writing competition for his story titled “Saving Sisay.” He won a $2,600 scholarship and the College of Journalism and Mass Communications will receive a matching grant.

Siddiqui’s winning entry is about a 7-year-old who suffers from a congenital spine disease and seeks life-saving spinal reconstruction. Without surgery, the condition will kill Sisay as early as age 14. Sisay underwent corrective spine surgery in Ghana earlier this year.

The feature writing competition is the most competitive among the Hearst awards with 153 entries. To see Siddiqui’s winning entry, go to http://projects.newsnetnebraska.org/sisay.

This represents Siddiqui’s fourth top-five Hearst award. He was a runner-up in the national writing championship in 2013.

With the win, Siddiqui qualified to participate in the Hearst National Writing Championship in San Francisco in June.

A senior journalism major from Cincinnati, Siddiqui is a recipient of the Harold and Marian Andersen Honors Scholarship. He has had internships at the Boston Globe, the Lincoln Journal Star and the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette. He was an Omaha World-Herald fellow, one of four students who wrote and reported for the newspaper and its website while earning a salary and college credit. His freelance work has appeared on NPR, WNYC in New York, WABE in Atlanta and West Virginia Public Broadcasting.

The 2014-2015 Hearst Journalism Awards Program is conducted at 110 member colleges and universities of the Association of Schools of Journalism and Mass Communication with accredited undergraduate journalism programs. The 14 monthly competitions consist of five writing, two photojournalism, one radio, two television and four multimedia competitions, with championship finals in all divisions. The program awards up to $550,000 in scholarships and matching grants and stipends annually.