Members of SNU’s newspaper staff gave up their Good Friday off to attend development workshops and received numerous awards for their work in 2014 at the Oklahoma Collegiate Media Association’s annual conference at Oklahoma State University on Friday, April 3rd.
The Echo was successful in the awards competitions for division 1A. The Echo won best overall online newspaper. Ronna Fisher, 2014 graduate, was Editor-in-Chief for Spring 2014 and Grace Williams, senior Sociology major, was Editor-in-Chief for Fall 2014. Fisher also won second place in General News Writing for her piece, “SNU Students Spend Their Christmas Serving Others”.
Williams said, “The workshops are always so inspiring and motivate me to strive for excellence. I also love seeing our staff’s hard work pay off in the form of awards that can go on resumes.”
The Fall 2014 Editorial Staff, Williams, Mike Vierow, sophomore Mass Communications major, Amy Calfy, junior English Major, Abby Felter, sophomore History major, and Hannah Bean, sophomore Graphic Design major, won first place in Editorial Writing for their piece, “18 tips to Make your SNU Experience Amazing.”
Amy Lauver, junior Science Education Major, won first place for General News Writing for her piece, “678,000 Reasons:Oklahoma Education Rally at the State Capital”. Erin Ramsey, sophomore Sociology Major, won second place in Column Writing for her piece, “Coffee Naps.”
Recent grads James Tunnel and Katelyn Lamb, who wrote for the Echo in their final semester, took home awards. Tunnel won first place and received an honorable mention for his reviews, “In review: Mac DeMarco, “Salad Days”and “In review: Tiger Lily – Won’t Let This Kill Me”. Lamb received an honorable mention for her reporting portfolio, which included her pieces: Expected Benefits from New Printing System, Savaged to Saved, Q&A with SNU student Sarah Jackson, Thunder Girl, So We Go, Senior Art and Design Show.
Students also attended workshops related to media and then a keynote speech by Adam Tanner, a Harvard researcher who studies data collection. He wrote What Stays In Vegas: The World of Personal Data—Lifeblood of Big Business—and the End of Privacy as We Know It.
“What I enjoy about going to this conference are the interesting sessions; I learned something new in each of them. And, it’s great to see our writers get recognized for their work,” said Calfy, who is currently the Content Editor for The Echo and one of the students who attended the conference this year.