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Casey Parks, a former full-time JFP staffer who remains a contributing editor while she attends graduate school at the University of Missouri School of Journalism, triumphed over nearly 4,000 American college and graduate school applicants in the New York Times' "Win a Trip With Nick Kristof" contest. She will have the chance to accompany the Pulitzer Prize-winning columnist on a reporting jaunt to Africa this September. Parks' winning essay describes her goal to be a journalist as "a distinct want (it's a thirst and a flame, all at once) ... for the reaching outside of myself, to break people's hearts so adeptly that they move into action."