The staff of the student publication, The Bucs’ Blade, brought home 33 individual awards as well as a Spartan Award while attending the Michigan Interscholastic Press Association Spring Conference in Lansing on Monday.

The entire staff was awarded the Spartan when they earned an overall score of 960 out of 1000 points on their newspaper evaluation. To win the award, publications must earn a score of 900 or higher. This was the highest score The Bucs’ Blade has received since at least 2007.

Adviser C.E. Sikkenga attributes much of their success to senior editors in chief, Madi Wilder and Austin Schouman.

“We’ve had a lot of new challenges this year,” Sikkenga said. “We’re trying to do our full time print paper and a full time website. It’s a real credit to a lot of the things Austin and Madi do behind the scenes to keep things on track. They’ve probably been the most independent leaders we’ve had and this is a nice acknowledgement that they’ve been doing a lot of things right.”

Along with the overall Spartan Award, many staff members were received individual awards. There were seven first places. However, there were two students who stood out to Sikkenga.

“Schaefer Thelen won first place in the state in Sports Feature,” Sikkenga said. “That’s the third consecutive year he’s won first in that category. I’m not sure that’s ever happened before–certainly never at Grand Haven.”

The story that won Thelen the first place was a feature profile on senior basketball player Amanda Merz.

The second writer that stood out to Sikkenga was sophomore Aliyah Austin. She took first place in the Information Feature category for her piece, “Socially Stressed.”

“Aliyah’s a budding star,” Sikkenga said. “It is extremely rare for a sophomore to even get pieces submitted for awards, not to mention actually win. They’re competing with the best upperclassmen just to get into the competition and then competing against them again to win. If you take a first as a sophomore, you’re doing something really well and it’s a sign of a special talent.”

The other first place winners were Schouman for Information Graphic, Schouman and Wilder for Story Package, and junior feature editor Landon Hudson for Human Interest Feature. Photo editor Maisy Hoffman and Schouman also won first for front page design and junior photojournalist Jonas Quirin took first in Environmental Portrait.

Although their website, www.bucsblade.com did not receive a Spartan Award, they improved their score from last year and won a Gold with an 820 out of 1000 points.