FHN Publications attended the 2014 Sponsors of Student Publications (SSP) spring conference at Webster University on March 10. SSP is a journalism conference for St. Louis-area schools to participate in. A total of 24 students from Publications attended the field trip.

The conference started at 9 a.m. and lasted until around 1:30 p.m. The day started with the opening awards ceremony, in which FHNtoday.com, the Excalibur yearbook, and the North Star newsmagazine all received Superior Awards.  Later, students attending the conference were allowed to attend two break-out sessions.

“I think it’s sort of cool [to lead a break-out session] because i was in their shoes once,” session leader Danielle Hohmeier said. “Getting to come back is somewhat of a privilege to show students that you get to do a lot with your journalism training.”

After lunches and break-out sessions, students listened to a speech from Keynote speaker and Emmy-Award winning journalist from FOX 2 Elliott Davis. Davis shared what it’s like to be a professional journalist and some of the experiences and people he’s met throughout his career.

“I liked all the speakers,” junior Maggie Torbeck said. “They really opened up my eyes to all the techniques that I can use in journalism.”

The conference ended with a closing awards ceremony. Individual awards were given out, along with a drawing in which winners received t-shirts. Afterward, students boarded the bus and were back at FHN by 2:10 p.m.

“I thought that the day was very successful,” junior Sarai Esparza said. “We got to learn a lot of new things and got some awards along with it.”