By Gwen De Young
The Michigan Interscholastic Press Association (MIPA) held their annual spring conference in East Lansing Michigan. MIPA is a strong supporter of students learning to exercise First Amendment rights responsibly. MIPA holds a spring conference where they recognize top writers, teachers, and high school media publications in Michigan. MIPA also holds summer workshops for students who want to further their skills and become better journalist.
Over 3000 student journalists from 73 schools newspapers across Michigan attended the conference in East Lansing, including the Loy Norrix Knight Life staff. Many journalists on the Knight Life staff had photos, articles and layout pages entered in 36 different categories in hopes of placing the top spot. Senior Veronica Hughes placed third in the Sports Column.
“I was surprised, I didn’t think I would win because I’ve only done this for a year,” said Hughes
Seniors Ava Gaines and Jocelyn Jensen also placed third in the Informative Spread category.
“I was so excited that I wanted to pee my pants,” said Jensen.
“Knight Life” newspaper was awarded the Spartan award, which is the highest award a high school newspaper can receive at the MIPA spring conference. This is a step up from last years Gold rating paper received and is now back to being titled a Spartan Awarded paper. Editor-in-Chief senior DeChelle Jones was happy about being awarded the Spartan.
“Dude I was shaking and my eye were about to water… It was amazing I felt very accomplished as an Editor-in-Chief,” said Jones.
Knight Life students who received individual honors:
- Third Place Sports column- Veronica Hughes
- Third Place Personality Profile- Davarius Hill
- Third Place Informative Feature- Ava Gaines and Jocelyn Jensen
- Third Place Comic Strip- Carrie Hoekstra
- Honorable Mention Illustration- Calvin Leinenbach
- Honorable Mention News Page Spread- Cristina Bryant
- Honorable Mention Environmental Coverage- Haley Pfeil
- Honorable Mention Portrait- Madison Luckett
- Honorable Mention Entertainment Page Spread- Cristina Bryant and Brittany Tyson
- Honorable Mention Sports Page Spread- Rachael Koole
- Honorable Mention Pro/Con Editorial Columns- Brittany Tyson and Polina Naumova
- Honorable Mention Opinion / Editorial Spread- Madison Luckett and Jocelyn Jensen also Madison Luckett and Veronica Hughes
- Honorable Mention Comic Strip- Jeremy Peterson
