The Eagle’s website earns 2nd place in overall

The Eagle’s website, csceagle.com garnered second place in the Excellence in Digital Medium category, the best overall award in the digital medium competition of the Nebraska Collegiate Media Association’s Golden Leaf Awards, presented Saturday this year at Hastings College.

The digital medium division’s competition is broken into 12 individual categories from breaking news stories to use of a digital medium for public service, to emerging platforms. Eligible entries must have been posted between March 1, 2013, and Feb. 28 this year.

Students from the NCMA’s eight member schools who competed this year earned points for their respective digital media for placing first (5 points), second (3 points) or third (1 point) in each of those 12 categories. Honorable mentions do not earn points. The points each student earns are then totaled to determine which digital medium earns the “Excellence in Digital Medium” title.

The csceagle.com staff submitted 17 entries. Four students scored points in eight of the 12 categories, including two first places, four second places, a third place and four honorable mentions, for a cumulative score of 23 points.

Doanline, Doane College, Crete, finished first with 55 points in the Excellence in Digital Medium category and HC Media Online, Hastings College, finished third with 17 points.

“I cannot say enough about the quality of work and the dedication of the student staff of The Eagle and csceagle.com,” said Michael D. Kennedy, journalism instructor and adviser of The Eagle and csceagle.com.

Web editor Hannah Clark, junior of Littleton, Colo., led the csceagle.com charge earning five individual awards – two first places, a second place and two honorable mentions.

“Hannah has stepped up and embraced her role as our web editor and she does a stellar job,” Kennedy said.

“She is a talented writer and editor, and a dedicated leader, committed to excellence in all she does.”

Clark earned one of her top honors in the Use of Digital Technology category. She shared her other first place award with The Eagle’s Managing Editor Ashley Swanson when the two paired up to capture the top place in the Digital Breaking News category.

“It’s an honor to receive the award,” Clark said about csceagle’s second place finish in overall excellence. “But my division, Digital Medium, is never an individual endeavor. The Eagle’s website in particular was a collective effort of not only myself, but of many previous web editors, including Kevin Oleksy who created the original design. I received regular help from every member of The Eagle staff, for which I am very grateful.”

Oleksy, who now works as a reporter for the Chadron Record, was csceagle.com’s original web editor when The Eagle launched the site in January 2011. Each year since then, csceagle.com has finished second, first, third and now second again the Excellence in Digital Medium category.

In addition to teaming with Clark in the breaking news category, Swanson also earned second place and an honorable mention in the Use of a Digital Medium for Public Service category.

The remaining two winners were former managing editor of The Eagle, Robert “Spike” Jordan, senior of Harrison, and former Executive Editor of The Eagle, T.J. Thomson of Golden, Colo.

Jordan teamed up with Swanson for their second-place finish in Use of Digital Medium for Public Service. He also took home another second place in the Emerging Platforms category, a third place in Multimedia Features, and two honorable mentions. Thomson, who graduated in May 2013, captured a second-place award in the Specialty Site category.