State journalism kicked off with a bang! The competition was held at Northeast Community College on April 27. Jadyn L. was the only student from Conestoga to participate in finals and ended in 2nd place. She worked hard all year, and you can too!
State journalism is made up of 26 different categories. “These categories range from writing news stories to taking pictures and designing yearbook spreads, and even broadcasting,” informs Allison Dworak, journalism teacher. State journalism for our smaller Class B team is a little intimidating against the bigger Class B schools. “Six students submitted newspaper stories (Categories: newspaper news, newspaper column writing, newspaper feature writing, sports feature writing, headline writing) and five students submitted photography entries (Categories: action photography, feature photography),” conveys Dworak.
Jadyn L. was the only one of these 11 entries to qualify for the competition this year. “This year I entered column writing and headline writing for state, and qualified for headline writing overall,” remarks Jadyn L., “This year I got 2nd place, receiving the silver, runner-up medal.” Headline writing in a short description is “Entry of three headlines should reflect accuracy, news judgment, journalistic style, and word choice in relation to the story.” The NSAA Journalism activity manual continues to educate, “Each entry must include the full stories for which the headlines have been composed.”
Joining journalism is the easy part, but what does it take to join the state journalism team? Well, it is also extremely easy; the most difficult part includes building the courage to put yourself out there! Here is Jadyn L. explaining how she entered, “I write for the prowl for fun, and Dworak told me she liked my headlines and said there’s no harm in submitting them, and I ended up qualifying.” She also added some advice that might help you if you are still debating joining, “I would say to keep that idea in your head all year, and put a lot of effort into your stories/pictures (or whatever category you’re wanting to enter) rather than just doing it for the class grade.”
