Registration for the 2024 Damon Runyon Award Banquet is closed. If you would like to be added to the waiting list, please contact Alby Segall at alby@denverpressclub.org.

The Damon Runyon Award has been presented annually by the historic Denver Press Club each spring since 1994.

The award is named after Damon Runyon, a legendary journalist who grew up in Colorado, worked at The Denver Post and Pueblo Chieftain, and became a member of the Press Club in 1907.

Runyon later went on to fame and glory in New York City as a columnist for Hearst newspapers. He is best-known for a collection of stories called “Guys and Dolls,” which later turned into a Broadway musical and a movie.

The Runyon Award banquet is the major fundraiser of the historic club, which is the oldest in the nation. Proceeds go toward the club’s historic preservation and five scholarships for $1500 and one — the John C. Ensslin Memorial Scholarship — for $3,000. The scholarships are reserved for college journalists from universities in Colorado.

2024 Damon Runyon Award Honoree

Ann Curry

Award-winning journalist Ann Curry, a former NBC Network news anchor and national and
international correspondent, has reported from conflicts in Syria, Afghanistan, Iraq, Somalia, Darfur,
Congo, the Central African Republic, Kosovo, Serbia, Lebanon, and Israel; on nuclear tensions from
North Korea and Iran and on numerous humanitarian disasters, including the tsunamis in Southeast Asia and Japan, and the massive 2010 earthquake in Haiti, where her appeal via Twitter/X(@AnnCurry) is credited for helping to speed the arrival of humanitarian planes.

She contributed groundbreaking journalism on Climate Change when it was being denied,
interviewing scientists and native peoples, documenting glacial melt in the Arctic, the Antarctic
(where she spent time inside an expedition hut left by Shackleton) and on Mount Kilimanjaro, as well as documenting the deepening drought in the American West.

Ann is also known for her focused reporting from inside Iran, giving voice to its women, human rights activists, and young people, including Green Revolution activists. She also first broke the news of Iran’s interest in negotiating a nuclear agreement with the outside world.

Ann has conducted a long list of exclusive and news breaking interviews, which have included Iran’s
President Hassan Rouhani, President Ahmadinejad, President Khatami and Foreign Minister Zarif;
Syria’s President Bashar al-Assad and First Lady Asma al-Assad; Pakistan’s Benazir Bhutto,
President Ali Zadari and President Musharraf; Turkey’s President Erdogan; Sudan’s President Omar
Bashir and South Sudan’s President Salva Kiir; Liberia’s President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf; Chad’s
President Idriss Deby; as well as U.S. Presidents George Prescott Bush, Bill Clinton, George Walker
Bush and Barack Obama, as well as Vice-President Joe Biden and Jill Biden, Secretaries of State
John Kerry and Hillary Clinton and First Lady Laura Bush.

Ann was given the Edward R. Murrow Lifetime Achievement in Journalism award in 2022.  She has
7 national news Emmys for her reporting along with numerous Murrow, Gracie, and National
Headliner Awards.  The NAACP has honored her with an Excellence in Reporting award
and Women in Communications has awarded her a Matrix.

Ann has also been given numerous humanitarian awards, including from Refugees International,
Americares, Save the Children, and the Muhammad Ali Center. The Simon Wiesenthal Center,
awarded her a Medal of Valor, for her dedication to reporting about genocide.

Ann is currently a Poynter fellow at Yale University.