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1961 Hellinger Award Winner- Fr. Bernard (William) Creighton, O.F.M
1961 was a year mostly focused on the future of the Hellinger Award. Expanding the committee membership, ensuring the financial viability of the award and following the progress of 1960 award winner John Checkett were all of the utmost priority as the committee took lengths to ensure that newly instituted award was to be a permanent and prestigious occurrence year in and year out.
As for the winner, William Creighton, in the words of Journalism Chairman Dr. Russell J. Jandoli, was "the top student in the class, a hard-working likeable guy with a good background for his state in life" and heartily endorsed by the advisory committee. However, Creighton had made the decision to enter the Franciscan Order, and told the committee that he was unable to accept the honor because he felt he wasn't deserving of an award dedicated to an up-and-coming journalist. Not wanting to give the award to "the No. 2 lad," the Hellinger Award committee decided to go without a winner for 1961. Therefore, for the next 30 years there was officially a gap in the award. In 1991, Fr. Bernard Creighton, O.F.M, then with the Franciscan Institute at St. Bonaventure, was retrospectively given the honor he had earned as an undergraduate student three decades earlier.