AZFoothills.com would like to congratulate Lauren Gilger, a 2011 graduate of Arizona State University's Cronkite School, who just won a prestigious George Foster Peabody Award. Gilger was acknowledged for an ABC15 investigative series exposing a deadly acceleration defect in Ford Escapes that led to a massive recall of the SUVs. The Peabody was one of only four given this year to local U.S. news stations and just the third won by a Phoenix station in more than 20 years.

During her time at ASU, Gilger was a lead reporter on Cronkite NewsWatch. She was part of a reporting team that produced in-depth stories along the Dominican Republic-Haiti border, earning a Robert F. Kennedy Journalism Award. And she was a fellow in the Carnegie-Knight News21 program, spending a summer traveling back and forth to the U.S.-Mexican border to produce stories on the plight of immigrant women caught in deportation limbo. Gilger was also named Outstanding Graduate Student at the May 2011 graduation ceremonies.