NPHS students recognized for journalistic excellence

Three North Platte High School students earned superior awards in the 2020 Journalism Education Association winter contest announced this week.

Senior Jakob Fisher won the highest award for his editorial cartoon “Jeff Bezos Saves the World.” Senior Gracia Lantis received the highest recognition for her column “Crossing Lines” rebutting criticism of North Platte High’s student section. Junior Jonathan Brouillette scored the top honor for his advertisement encouraging others to support the student journalism freedom bill LB206.

Across the state, 396 journalism students from 28 high schools earned an award in this year's JEA Nebraska Winter Contest. Yearbook, newspaper, literary magazine and broadcasting students across the state will receive certificates for entries judged Superior, Excellent and Honorable Mention. “It is one thing to share news within your school community, but quite another to be evaluated by a professional and deemed worthy of recognition,” said JEA state director Marsha Kalkowski.

Since 2004, Nebraska’s JEA has sponsored this contest to showcase student work from the fall semester from across the state. Many advisers use this contest to test the competition in preparation for the NSAA State Journalism Contest.

There are 21 traditional categories: Advertising, Column Writing, Editorial Cartooning, Editorial Writing, Review Writing, Newspaper Feature Writing, InfoGraphic Design, News Writing, Newspaper Sports Feature Writing, Newspaper Sports News Coverage, Newspaper Layout, Headline Writing & Design, News/Feature Photography, Sports/Action Photography, Photo Illustration, Yearbook Feature Writing, Yearbook Sports Writing, Yearbook Theme Copy Writing, Yearbook Layout, Yearbook Theme Development and In-Depth Coverage. Four broadcast categories: News, Feature, Sports and Overall Program and one literary magazine category.

Entries from each category were judged by professional journalists and veteran high school advisers from across the nation.

Other NPHS winners include:

Excellent--

Anam Vaziri: Advertising & Feature writing

Jonathan Brouillette: Entertainment review writing

Jewels Zeiler: Feature writing

Treven Hipwell: InfoGraphic design

Anissa Hoffman: Sports feature writing

Kaylyn Casassa: Yearbook feature writing

Honorable Mention--

Sophia Walsh: InfoGraphic design & Sports/action photography

Gracia Lantis: News writing