Blade staff wins Spartan Award

Morgan Womack, Co-Editor-In-Chief

The Bucs’ Blade staff won a Spartan Award at the spring Michigan Interscholastic Press Association (MIPA) conference on April 23. 

The three issues submitted received a score evaluation of 920/1000 points. Spartan Awards are distributed based on the score given by a judge who reviews each of the print issues.

“The staff has produced some rather fascinating, articulate, professional journalistic work with this paper,” judge Denise Reaman wrote in the critique. “They should be rather proud as I read that quite a few new people were trained for this year.”

Overall, the spring MIPA conference was successful for the Bucs’ Blade with the staff receiving multiple awards outside of the Spartan.

The staff nominated advisor C.E. Sikkenga for the Golden Pen Award earlier in the year. Out of the four advisors nominated, Sikkenga won the award.

News editor Caleb Berko was also recognized at the beginning of the ceremony by advisor Elizabeth Cyr for his work in the MIPA Student Advisory Cohort.

Here are the results from the individual awards:

 

FIRST PLACE
News Page/Spread – Carlos Rappleye

News Analysis – Carlos Rappleye and Elena Salik

Pro/Con Editorial Column – Macayla Cramer and Morgan Womack

In-depth Feature – Sophia Jaeger and Morgan Womack

Sports Columnist – Sam Woiteshek

Sports Action Photo – Maddie Monroe

 

SECOND PLACE
Bylined Opinion Article – Sophia Jaeger

In-depth Feature – Sophia Jaeger, Maddie Monroe, Morgan Womack

Sports Action Photo – Addy Wachter

News/Feature Photo – Carlos Rappleye

Environmental Portrait – Maddie Monroe

Photo Story – Carlos Rappleye and Morgan Womack

 

THIRD PLACE

Informative Feature – Nick Garvale and Maddie Monroe

Human Interest Feature – Nick Twa

 

HONORABLE MENTION
Story Package – Chris Hudson and Maddie Monroe

Sports Page/Spread – Sam Woiteshek

Online Breaking News – Sam Woiteshek

Online Breaking News – Nick Garvale

News Brief – Chris Hudson

Editorial – Staff

Bylined Opinion Article – Maddie Monroe

Informative Feature – Chris Hudson and Maddie Monroe

Personality Profile – Emily Jarrell

Alternative Story Format – Sophia Jaeger

Sports Feature Photo – Carlos Rappleye