Our panel of judges has selected the 2025 Amateur Radio Newsline Bill Pasternak Memorial Young Ham of the Year Award winner. Mark Abramowicz NT3V is chairman of the award committee and has the announcement..
MARK: She is 17 years old and from the small town of Columbiana in northeast Ohio. Meet Katie Campbell KE8LQR.
MARK w/KATIE: You are the 2025 Young Ham of the Year
KATIE: Thank you so much.
MARK: Are you surprised?
KATIE:: Uh, yeah, yeah.
MARK: Not expecting a call like this as the summer begins?
KATIE: No, I was not.
MARK:: Katie Campbell is a bright and talented advocate for youth in amateur radio whose interest in the hobby was sparked when she was 10.
KATIE: My school started an amateur radio and electronics club [in] my fifth-grade year open to just middle-schoolers that year. So, I joined and then pretty quickly made the connection that that’s’ like what my family had been sort of involved with. My grandpa had had his license since he was around 14. And, then my mom she’d also had her license since middle school.
MARK: Katie says she quickly got her ham ticket advancing all the way to Extra by the age of 11. She says she then discovered the music of Morse Code. She immersed herself in CW and contesting and rose to become president of K8LPS, the Columbiana School Radio Club located inside the science classroom of Katie’s mom, Colleen Campbell KB8VAQ.
Her dad is Robert Campbell KE8LYZ. Katie’s maternal grandfather is Thomas Frost N8GGK. It was her interest that got him radio active again.
Katie attended the Youth on the Air camp in 2022 in Cincinnati and has been a key staff member ever since, doing public relations and mentoring campers.
Katie has been a regular presenter at forums at the Dayton Hamvention, Hamcation and SEA-PAC.
Katie has another opportunity as she begins her senior year of high school: as an exchange student in Germany. She’s hoping to make amateur radio a part of her experience.
Congratulations, Katie, from all of us at Amateur Radio Newsline.
I’m Mark Abramowicz NT3V.
