February 21, 2000

Bowling Green, Ky. -- A Western Kentucky University senior has been selected as one of the nation's 25 Most Promising Minority Advertising Students.

Matthew Zavala, the son of Juan and Dorothy Zavala of Elizabethtown, will be in New York on Feb. 24-25 as part of the program sponsored by the American Advertising Federation. The event ends with an awards luncheon at the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel.

The outstanding multicultural advertising students will meet with recruiters and executives from leading advertising agencies, advertisers and media companies as part of an effort to increase diversity in the industry.

Zavala is president of the WKU Advertising Club and spent last summer at a New York ad agency as part of the American Association of Advertising Agencies internship program.

More than 70 percent of the Most Promising Minority Students selected in 1997, 1998 and 1999 are working in the advertising industry.

"There's a lot of good opportunities for him," said Carolyn Stringer, advertising program coordinator for Western's School of Journalism and Broadcasting.