The North Howler newspaper and The Imprint yearbook teams brought their skills to the State Journalism competition on Monday, hosted by the NSAA at Northeast Community College in Norfolk, Neb.
The difficult work of reporting and designing school and current events has paid off, as their work has been recognized throughout the state.
North Howler state qualifiers included seniors Chelsea Mahloch, Payton Brummels, and Alayna Vaughn, juniors Chloe Mead and Garrett Ringenberg, and sophomore Taiya Viacrucis. The Imprint state qualifiers were senior Elle Boehler, juniors Hailey Schinning and Aubrey Bannister, and sophomore Mia Turner.
Advisers from across the state must narrow down their students’ work to submit the top three pieces in each category. The judges then determine the top eight entries, and those students are the state qualifiers.
“I’m pretty proud of myself and of the team,” junior editor Chloe Mead. “It means a lot to me that someone else liked my pieces just as much as I did.”
At the competition, the eight qualifying students compete live and write a new article. For some categories, like sports feature writing, the students have to actually conduct an interview as part of the competition then use their notes to write an article.
“For the hour we have to compete, state is very stressful,” senior reporter Alayna Vaughn said. “but the opportunity is amazing.”
After competing, students must sit and wait for the judges to deliberate. They use these and the original summitted work to determine each student’s placement in the top eight.
“I’m so proud of my staff,” north howler adviser Chloe Healy said. “They’ve worked really hard this year to write about things important to our community and it makes me really happy to see that hard work recognized.”
See the full list of ENHS placements below –
- Payton Brummels – in-depth newspaper coverage – 8th
- Payton Brummels – column writing – 6th
- Garrett Ringenberg – editorial writing – 6th
- Chelsea Mahloch – column writing – 7th
- Alayna Vaughn – sports feature writing – 4th
- Taiya Viacrucis – column writing – 4th
- Taiya Viacrucis – entertainment review – 7th
- Chloe Mead – in-depth newspaper coverage – 7th
- Mia Turner – yearbook layout – 1st
- Aubrey Bannister, Elle Boehler, Hailey Schinning – yearbook theme development – 1st
