Mill Valley High School journalism students earned top honors in the Journalism Educators of Metropolitan Kansas City annual awards night Tuesday, April 16.
Seniors Hanna Torline and Austin Gillespie both won the Michael Dunlap Excellence in Journalism award given annually to the top student journalists in the Kansas City area. They received a plaque and a $500 scholarship. Torline and Gillespie are two of three editors in chief for the JagWire newspaper.
Gillespie is excited that he received the scholarship.
“I’m pretty proud,” Gillespie said. “Hanna [Torline] said she saw three tubs of portfolios that had to be handed back so it seemed pretty competitive.”
Lots of work went into choosing individual entries for the scholarship and for the staff entry as a whole.
“We spent some time looking at everything we’ve done this year and chose what we were most proud of and thought was our best work,” Gillespie said. “We chose pieces that we thought had the best chance going up against stuff from other schools.”
Torline and senior Ellen Bodine won the Opal Heatherly Writing Awards for seniors, given annually to students who demonstrate exceptional reporting and writing skills. They received a plaque and a $150 scholarship.
The JagWire newspaper staff earned the following awards:
Junior Connor Oswald and senior Mackenzie Eckman, honorable mention in news writing
Senior Austin Gillespie, first place in news facing page design, second place in infographic design, first place in critical review writing, honorable mention in web blogging
Senior Kelsey Floyd, third place in feature photography
Senior Hanna Torline and sophomore Callee Linton, honorable mention in feature writing
Torline and senior Kristina Milewski, first place in news feature writing
JagWire staff: third place in overall design and third place in sweepstakes
The JAG yearbook earned the following awards:
Seniors Ellen Bodine, Jillian Mullin, Lisa Galvan, second place in theme presentation
Mullin, first place in yearbook feature writing and second in yearbook overall design
Juniors Taylor Cowan and Kylie Lewis, honorable mention in yearbook portrait page design
Junior Erica Leonard, second place in yearbook clubs design
Sophomore Mikaela McCabe, second place in yearbook feature copy writing
Mill Valley News Online earned the following awards:
Third place, online photo gallery
First place, multimedia package
MVTV earned the following awards:
Junior Michael Remijio, honorable mention in broadcast sports story
Kathy Habiger is the adviser of the JagWire, JAG and MV News Online. Cindy Swartz is the adviser of MVTV.
