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24 May 2018 Photo Supplied
UFS alumnus wins National Liberty Radio Award - Thabang Moselane
At the Liberty Radio Awards, Thabang Moselane winner in the Night-Time Show category.

“When I started studying at the University of the Free State in 2015, I told myself I would not be an ordinary student. I knew the university offered many opportunities and I intended to take advantage of that,” says Thabang. The young radio personality, Thabang Moselane hails from a small town called Christiana in the North West. He is the recent winner of the Liberty Radio Award in the night-time show category.
 
“I still cannot explain how I felt when I was announced as the winner, happiness is an understatement. Winning this award is a recognition of my talent and efforts to change and impact lives of many people through the medium,” he said. Thabang is a Media Studies and Journalism graduate from the UFS and is currently studying his Honours degree in Film and Visual Media. “The university through Kovsie FM made it possible for me to develop and get experience,” added the award winner.

The UFS alumnus started his career in radio at Kovsie FM and later joined an online publication called The Journalist as a contributing writer. He now works at OFM where he hosts ‘A touch of Thabang’, the award winning show. “The show is quite unusual, it reflects my personality. It is a show for the people, about the people and the conversations are never light-hearted,” he said.
 
Asked what drew him to radio, Thabang said with a chuckle, “I have always wanted to be a psychologist but one morning five years ago, I woke up and told my mother I wanted to be a star. I believe my love for interacting and engaging with people drew me to radio.”
Apart from radio and writing, Thabang is also a motivational speaker, MC at events and an aspiring businessman.

News Archive

Penny Siopis recipient of the prestigious Helgaard Steyn Award
2015-12-15

Vanya Terblance (ABSA Trust representative) hands over the award to Penny Siopis
Photo: Valentino Ndaba

On Friday 4 December 2015, Penny Siopis, the well-known Cape Town-based artist, who has been exhibiting her work locally and internationally since 1975, was presented with the 2015 Helgaard Steyn Award and a prize of R 550 000 for her painting entitled Swarm.

A quadrennial award lunch was hosted by the University of the Free State (UFS) Johannes Stegman Gallery in conjunction with the Helgaard Steyn and ABSA Trusts. The Helgaard Steyn Trust was established by the estate of Dr Jan Steyn and was named after his father and his brother who was the last president of the Orange Free State Republic.

Swarm, a 2011 painting using ink and glue on canvas, depicts a swarm of bees in a complex, dynamic, and intense manner. It earned the prestigious award that is dedicated to the promotion of artistic culture based on the adjudicators’ unanimous decision. Angela de Jesus, curator of the Johannes Stegmann Art Gallery at the UFS, Annali Dempsey of the University of Johannesburg Gallery, and Prof John Botha, Associate Professor in Art History at North West University, made up the 2015 panel of judges.

On receiving the award, Siopis thanked the Steyn family, the judges, and the people who nominated her. “I am struck by how fantastic it feels to be acknowledged. It is extraordinary when people are struck by what was your own world and the intensity buzzing in your head.”

According to Prof Botha, “Naturally the work of art is chosen on grounds of artistic merit and in the context of contemporary values with regards to both form and content.”

The award-winning painter studied Fine Arts at Rhodes University and Portsmouth University in United Kingdom. Apart from lecturing Fine Arts at the University of the Witwatersrand, she is an honorary professor at University of Cape Town Michaelis School of Fine Art. She has also taught at the Natal Technicon in Durban.

Siopis has received numerous awards for her work, including a British Council Scholarship, a Merit Award at the 2nd Cape Town Triennial, and the Atelier Award for a residency at the Cité Internationale des Arts in Paris, in addition to the Alexander S Onassis fellowship for research in Greece.

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