The Eagle grabs 25 awards at annual media conference

The Eagle won 25 awards, including nine first-place finishes, a second place in overall excellence in the newspaper division, and a third place in overall excellence in the Web division at the Nebraska Collegiate Media Association’s annual Golden Leaf Awards Saturday at CSC.

The awards were the culmination of the 2010 NCMA conference, April 23-24, and hosted for the first time in the association’s history by The Eagle and Chadron State College. The Golden Leaf Awards honor media students from 10 NCMA-member schools across Nebraska for their work in television, Web site, radio, and newspaper. About 75 media students and faculty advisors from seven institutions attended the conference.

The Eagle earned 31 points to finish second in the newspaper competition’s overall excellence category, four points behind the 35 points garnered by The Doane Owl, Doane College, Crete, which took first. The Wayne Stater, Wayne State College, finished third with 25 points.

In the Web site competition, csceagle.com, the online version of The Eagle, which launched in January, placed in each of that division’s eight categories, including first in arts and entertainment coverage and first in opinion coverage. CSC’s newspaper, csceagle.com, finished third in overall excellence behind second-place finisher, Doaneline, Doane College, and first-place finisher, HC Media Online, Hastings College.

Students from The Eagle were honored in individual categories, as seven different CSC students won honors. CSC journalism instructor and The Eagle adviser, Michael D. Kennedy, said the conference went well.

“The goal was to make it informative and enjoyable and have the students leave with good memories,” Kennedy said. “And based on the responses and comments from the attendees, I think we hit a home run.”

A major draw to this year’s conference was the selection of two journalists from Afghanistan to serve as keynote speakers for the annual awards banquet. Hamim Kakar, regional and international editor, and Zainab Mohammadi, senior reporter, both of Pajhwok Afghan News, Kabul, delivered “inspiring speeches,” as one student said.

Skylar Osovski, editor-in-chief of The Wayne Stater, said CSC did a great job hosting the conference and the awards.

“We liked being at CSC for the conference and we didn’t feel alienated,” Osovski said. “The choice of speakers gave us an international perspective and we enjoyed that.”

Savanna Wick, junior of Sturgeon Bay, Wis., a journalism major and editor of The Eagle, won first place in the page-one layout and design category and said the guest speakers from Afghanistan were an asset to the conference.

“They had relatable and catchy speeches,” she said.

Kennedy and The Eagle student staff planned and executed the conference, but not without help.

“A great deal of planning went into the conference, particularly our choices for the seminar faculty; the decision to host a reception Friday night and the decision we made to bring in our colleagues from Afghanistan as keynote speakers for the awards banquet,” Kennedy said. “But none of that would have been possible without the support of our administration, particularly Dr. (Janie) Park and Dr. (Lois) Veath. They supported us 100 percent from the beginning.

“Everybody, Dr. (Randy) Rhine, who welcomed our guests at the banquet; Tracy Shuck and the food service folks, and Dr. (Jim) Margetts, who played piano during our reception Friday, made the conference the success it was,” he said. “Without their support, we could not have done what we did, as successfully as we did it.”

Eagle staff members who received honors include; Jennifer Cleveland, honorable mention in hard news/spot news story, newspaper; Kinley Q. Nichols, first place in sports photograph, newspaper; Savanna N. Wick, third place in sports photography, second and third place in news photography, first and honorable mention in page one layout and design, third place in cartoon, newspaper; Samantha Evans, first place in news photograph, newspaper; T.J. Thomson, third place in feature photography, first and second place in two-page special spread design, first place in special design graphs or graphics, newspaper; Miles Bannan, first place in headlines, newspaper; Daniel Schwager, second place in advertisement design, newspaper.