The Buckley Awards
The Buckley Awards, originally founded and organized by the Young Conservatives Coalition from 2010-2016, began as a way to recognize outstanding young professional conservatives for their above-and-beyond service to the conservative movement. The award is in honor of William F. Buckley, Jr., whom before the age of 30 became the leader of the early conservative movement championing conservative fusion – a philosophy that brought together various strands of conservatism to work together to achieve political success and conserve America’s founding principles. The award ceremony is still one of the only ones in our movement that focuses on great achievements of young professional conservatives.
Nominations for the 2017 Buckley Awards are now closed.
Previous Buckley Award winners include (organizations listed from the time of the award):
2016
Pete Hegseth – Fox News/Author
Charlie Kirk – Turning Point USA
Beverly Hallberg – District Media Group
Jessica Jensen – Young America’s Foundation
Thomas Peters – uCampaign
2015
Jim Geraghty – National Review
Kristen Soltis Anderson – Echelon Insights
Mollie Hemingway – The Federalist
Lachlan Markay – Washington Free Beacon
2014
Matthew Continetti – Washington Free Beacon
Roger Custer – America’s Future Foundation
Ryan Williams – Claremont Institute
James O’Keefe – Project Veritas
2013
Yuval Levin – National Affairs
Ryan T. Anderson – The Heritage Foundation
Alex Smith – College Republican National Committee
Remy Munasifi – Reason TV
Will Weatherford – Speaker of Florida House of Representatives
2012
Katie Pavlich – Townhall & Fox News
Heather Pfitzenmaier – The Heritage Foundation
Alex Schriver – College Republican National Committee
Patrick Coyle – Young America’s Foundation
Lila Rose – Live Action
2011
Paul Teller – Republican Study Committee
Matt Lewis – The Daily Caller
Peter Redpath – The Federalist Society
Amy Frederick – 60 Plus
Vinnie Vernuccio – Competitive Enterprise Institute
2010
Hannah Giles – Big Journalism
Kristan Hawkins – Students of Life
Karin Agness – Network of enlightened Women
John McCormack – The Weekly Standard
Evan Dent Flores – Collegians for a Constructive Tomorrow
Emerging Leaders
AFF’s Emerging Leaders are the next big names in the liberty movement. They’re graduating seniors passionate about liberty with career potential advancing it. We want to recognize them.
Award recipients will be featured at an AF Welcome to Washington event, promoted for placement at partner organizations to start their careers, and receive access to AF events for networking and knowledge sharing as they begin their post-graduation journey.
Applications for Emerging Leaders open in the spring.
Past winners include:
2016 Emerging Leaders
Sam Audia (University of Michigan), Mariana Barillas (Thomas Edison State University); Megan Cook (Salem College), Cahleel Copus (University of Wisconsin Madison), Chris Harelson (Latter Day Saints Business College), Destiny Goede (University of Florida), Chris Perrigan (Florida Gulf Coast University), Cameron Swathwood (Liberty University), Daniel Takash (John Hopkins University), Natalie Tuttle (Florida State University), Liz Wolfe (The College of William and Mary)
2017 Emerging Leaders
Razi Lane (Hillsdale College), Vanessa Rivera (Florida Gulf Coast University), Natalie Bao Tram Le (Harvard University), Caitlyn Tierney (Virginia Tech), Alex “Allie” Harris (Miami University), Jacob Richards (Arizona Christian University), John Flo (St. Louis University), Lisa DiGiovanna (California State University, Los Angeles), Louis Anthony Bertolotti (University of Notre Dame), Andrew DiGiovanna (Citrus College).