Three new Rising Star Award winners and 9 new Daily Texan Hall of Fame members will be honored April 4 on the UT campus.
In addition scholarship grants from the Friends of The Daily Texan, Inc. group and donors will be presented to 13 Daily Texan staffers.
You may register to attend here:
https://friendsdailytexan.wildapricot.org/event-6006159
In addition to introduction of Texan Hall of Fame honorees, the event will also celebrate the 125th anniversary of The Daily Texan.
Event attendees will view a trailer of a documentary film being prepared by former Texan staff staffer Quin Mathews, a respected Dallas journalist and producer of documentaries.
The gathering will begin at 5 p.m. with an outdoor reception on the Walter Cronkite Plaza, located between the Texas Student Media building and the Moody College of Communication complex. There will be a variety of food and beverage stations.
Also beginning at 5 p.m. will be a tour and visitation time at the adjacent Daily Texan offices.
The reception ends at 6:45 p.m., and then moves to a comfortable Moody auditorium for Hall of Fame inductions and awarding award of scholarships to Daily Texan staff members.
The event will begin at 7:15 p.m. and end at 9:30 p.m.
This year, 13 Daily Texan staffers will receive annual grants from the Friends of The Texan group and its partners.
Rising Star 2025 Award Winners
Fernanda Figueroa is a reporter at The Associated Press, where she writes about Latino Affairs.
She is also a sailor for the US Navy Reserve. Before joining the AP, she worked as a Community News Reporter for the Austin American-Statesman writing about government, business and transportation in Austin area suburbs.
She received her bachelor’s degree from the University of Texas Rio Grande Valley in 2020 and in 2024 she received a Master of Public Affairs from the University of Texas at Austin. In 2021, she worked as a general assignment reporter at The Daily Texan.
Paul Cobler is a politics reporter for the Houston Landing, a new nonprofit news organization.
Previously, he spent two years working as the Baton Rouge City Hall Reporter at The Advocate in Louisiana.
He was also a DC Reporter Fellow for The Dallas Morning News in 2020. He has done internships at the Houston Chronicle, Texas Tribune, Austin American-Statesman and San Antonio Express-News. He spent a semester as a Senior Reporter at The Daily Texan in 2016. His sister Nicole Cobler is also being honored as a Rising Star this year.
Nicole Cobler is an Austin reporter for Axios.
She is teaching a class on newsletter writing at UT, and is on the board of Texas Student Media.
Previously, she covered state politics and business for the Austin American-Statesman.
Nicole’s work has been featured in the Washington Post, Dallas Morning News, Houston Chronicle, Texas Tribune and more. Nicole spent two years in The Daily Texan basement as a reporter, associate news editor and a member of the paper’s tech team. She grew up in Victoria, Texas. Her brother Paul Cobler is also being honored as a Rising Star this year.