The FHN Publications team went to the Fall National High School Journalism Convention, sponsored by the Journalism Education Association and National Scholastic Press Association, in Philadelphia from Nov. 8-10. During this years’ convention, FHN students received 21 top 10 awards, 13 top five awards, and seven top two awards. Along with that, one of five FHN quiz bowl teams qualified for the sweet 16 round and one competed in the top eight. For a full list of awards, read the press release.
“The awards ceremony was super fun,” sophomore and student life photo staffer Claire Brightwell said. “I loved all of our school spirit and our support for all of the other schools from Missouri. It was also amazing seeing all my friends win awards and succeed.”
The biggest national award any student publication can earn is the Pacemaker. At the NHSJC this year, the North Star newsmagazine received its ninth Pacemaker, which brings up the total Pacemakers earned across all staffs to 25.
“It’s just a lot of work from everybody involved,” senior and Co-Editor-In-Chief of news staff Violet Newton said. “It requires good writing, good design and good editing. If you are missing any of those components, the paper will be lacking.”
To be eligible to attend the convention, students must be in publications and do some work over the summer to further their knowledge. While only some students are able to go to the convention, work from all six of the publication staffs are submitted for awards, including some work from those in journalism intro classes. Lennon Sharp is a current sophomore on news staff who was in an intro class last year and had some of his comics published in the newspaper. He was unable to attend the convention, but still received the national top 10 cartoon of the year award for his work.
“It was nice to receive just because of how unexpected it was,” Sharp said. “I did those comics last year just to give myself a fun little project to do and didn’t really expect anything to come out of it, so to see it payoff like that is really cool, I didn’t even know there were awards for cartoons.”
While at the convention, not only do students win a number of awards and participate in competitions, they also attend sessions hosted by a number of big names in journalism and education. The Student Press Law Center hosted many sessions, including one about the Hazelwood v. Kuhlmeier court case which featured none other than Cathy Kuhlmeier herself. Other sessions were hosted by college professors, past and present high school journalists, printing companies and professionals in the field of journalism.
“The most beneficial session I went to talked about using data and analytics from the election to cover the election and tell the story through data,” senior and yearbook editor Carter Houdeshell said. “We’ve just finished having a major presidential election and it really gave me an insight into how little I actually know about how news sources and other companies get their research and data for the election.”
Outside of the convention, FHN goes, sometimes alone, sometimes with other schools, on nightly outings. Some are just for dinner at a local restaurant, while others from Philadelphia include an interactive murder mystery dinner theater and a cruise along the Delaware river with Kingwood Park High School from Texas.
“I enjoyed going to our themed dinner escape room,” sports photography editor Jordan Ousley said. “It definitely helped me talk to people I didn’t expect to. I had a lot of fun and made some new friends.”
