Twenty Marist High School journalists attended the Journalism Education Association/National Scholastic Press Association (JEA/NSPA) spring high school journalism convention at the Marriott Marquis in San Francisco April 12-14. Marist was the only Catholic high school from Illinois to participate in the spring convention, which was attended by over 6,000 students from around the country.
Six RedHawk journalists competed in write-off contests at the convention and earned recognition for their work. Senior Stephanie Kozlowski, earned a superior rating in feature writing, as did junior Georgia Lattas in copy editing/headline writing. Seniors Gianna Miritello and Jocelyn Diaz earned excellent achievement awards for sports writing and editorial cartooning, respectively. Junior Gina Musso earned an excellent achievement award in news writing and sophomore Cece Gibbons earned an honorable mention in commentary writing.
Miritello, Diaz and Kozlowski are the first Marist journalists in school history to win awards at two consecutive national conventions, having competed in the JEA/NSPA fall convention in November 2017 in Dallas.
“I am so proud of everyone who competed and everyone who won awards,” Miritello said. “Having six people on our staff who have won national awards is very encouraging and it is an honor to be on a newspaper with such high-achieving and hard-working members.”
Since 2012, a total of 15 awards have been earned by RedHawk journalists at JEA/NSPA conventions.
“The convention is always such a rewarding experience for all of us,” Kozlowski said. “We come back with new information, empowered to improve our reporting and writing skills and our school newspaper.”
Earlier in April, the NSPA critique service also awarded a first-class rating with three marks of distinction to the Marist Sentinel, the school newspaper.