Rolla High School journalists really stood out at the 2011 State Journalism Awards day and competition, which is sponsored by the Missouri Interscholastic Press Association, on Apr. 4.
ECHO newspaper, under editor-in-chief senior Hannah Raper, earned an “Excellent” rank in the Overall Missouri High School Newspaper category and the newly designed online version, www.rhsecho.com, won a ‘Superior” award. Junior Kenny Bohannan is the site’s webmaster.
In addition to these full staff awards, several students placed in individual categories. Sophomore journalism student Megan Falkenhain earned a “Superior” award for diversity awareness coverage, junior managing editor Kaitlyn Hanlin and graphics editor Connie Liou won a “Superior” award for center spread page design. Senior copy editor Sam Jokisch, junior Hanlin, and sophomore staff writer Morgan Westover won “Superior” awards for feature reporting. Senior photojournalism editor Kim Wronkiewicz won two “Superior” awards in the categories of artistic photography and sports feature photography respectively. Junior news editor Sarah Rolufs won a “Superior” award for regular column writing. Junior videographer Daniel Galarza won a “Superior” award in the category of television news story for his What Makes a Snow Day video, which can be viewed at www.rhsecho.com.
The day on the Mizzou campus also included an on-cite writing competition. Students hear a presentation and are offered the opportunity to interview the presenter in a press conference format. Students are then given a one and a half hour deadline to compose a story for judging. Junior graphic design editor Connie Liou placed third in this competition with her review of the speaker.
In March, Jokisch and senior viewpoint editor Nicolle Swiecicki earned an “Excellent” award in a smiliar write-off competition sponsored by Sponsors of School Publications of Greater St. Louis on Webster University’s campus.
Swiecicki earned an “Honorable Mention” at the National Journalism Convention in November which is co-sponsored by the Journalism Education Association and National Scholastic Press Association.
ECHO is a student produced publication which distributes free to all RHS students on the last school Friday of every month and daily online at www.rhsecho.com.
Seniors Mercedes McCann, Chelsea Robbins, Stephanie Waldmann, Ty Brinlee, sophomores Andrea Zalis and Emily Sellberg, and freshman Gage Scurlock attended workshops at Missouri’s Journalism Day to bring ideas into the RHS Growler yearbook and video yearbook programs. Their work will be judged in a similar competition in the fall.
ECHO and Growler operate under the advise of Mary Gillis and are funded, in part, through local advertising.
