Everyone on the staff of The Jacket Buzz, Starkville High School”s student newspaper, knew the paper was having a good year. But nobody was prepared for what happened at Friday”s State Convention.
The Buzz brought home 23 awards with eight first-place finishes from the Mississippi Scholastic Press Association in Oxford, sweeping the news photography category in addition to claiming top honors for best sports section, column of the year and first place in feature writing. SHS even took the award for broadcast staff member of the year despite having no broadcast program.
“I don”t guess I was prepared for it, but I knew they had a shot,” said R.J. Morgan, staff adviser to the journalism students. “I knew what they were producing met my sniff test of good journalism.”
Managing Editor Zach Mitchell, a senior who has worked on the newspaper and yearbook staff since his freshman year, witnessed a change in SHS students” perception of The Buzz this year.
“It”s gotten a lot better this year as far as people who actually read it. It”s a lot more engaging to them and people are talking about it,” he said.
Morgan chalks that up to the interest of the 22 staff members — up from eight last year — and their genuine concern for what”s effecting students at SHS.
“They”re very inquisitive. That”s what makes them excellent journalists. The writing is good, but what sets them apart is their critical thinking skills and willingness to ask the hard questions and take more mature angles in stories,” said Morgan.
Starkville Supt. Judy Couey has fielded a few of those hard questions this year, but encourages The Buzz to keep asking them. She was on hand Wednesday at SHS to congratulate the newspaper staff on their accomplishments and hung around long enough to discuss some of the disagreements she”s had with the young journalists.
“I appreciate you disagreeing at times,” she told them of issues such as school uniforms or the amount of money funneled to the football program. “You do it respectfully.”
“I”m appreciative of the freedom you give them,” answered Morgan.
Despite the young staff”s natural curiosity and pursuit of the truth, they”re still high schoolers in need of guidance.
“Keeping them on task is the main problem with intelligent kids who are creative and involved in everything,” said Morgan. “They produce their newspaper and yearbook, write stories and take pictures. My main job is marshaling them in the right direction and being there as a sounding board.”
Like experienced journalists, the students lose focus occasionally but manage to meet deadline with a quality product.
“We may have been behind a couple times, but we came through to get it done each time,” said Lammi Micha, senior sports editor.
Senior Andrew LaFrance is so good at broadcasting, he doesn”t even have to do it to win awards.
LaFrance, a reporter, won third place in news writing but also won first place in broadcasting thanks to a judging error. The recommendation letter from Morgan and Mitchell praising LaFrance for his writing apparently went to the broadcast judge and managed to take top honors even though the letter said nothing about broadcasting.
“Somehow we beat schools that actually have broadcast staffs,” said LaFrance.
The staff”s next challenge is putting together the SHS annual, which will have a technology theme. Yearbook Staffer of the Year, junior Bailey Brocato, said the iJacket, as it”s being called, has the potential to be “wretchedly lame” in the hands of a less capable staff, but is coming together perfectly.
“It”s incredible because we”ve committed to it. I”ve never seen a group of people in high school this committed to something. I”m really proud of us for being as driven as we have been,” said Brocato.
Jason Browne was previously a reporter for The Dispatch.
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