LAWRENCE — The Kansas Scholastic Press Association is proud to announce the winners of the 2018 State Contest, which rewarded the best student journalism from around the state. To earn the chance to compete in the State Contest, students qualified through Regional Contests in February.

In the State Contest, students from 82 different schools competed in 21 different categories in 3 different classifications. KSPA will award more than 350 awards for entries into the contest.

From Ellis High School, the following students won awards:
● Kyrsten Frickey, Copy Editing, Honorable Mention
● Ali Weber, Cutline Writing, 3rd place
● Lauryn Becker, Editorial Cartoon, 3rd place
● Dawson Sproul, Online Photo Gallery, 3rd place
● Breonna North, Sports Photography, 3rd place
● Kyrsten Frickey and Sierra Schmidt, Yearbook Theme and Graphics, Honorable Mention
● Dawson Sproul, Headline Writing and Design, Honorable Mention

The University of Kansas hosted the day of the competition at the Memorial Union. Nine different categories, such as editorial writing and sports writing, took place on the day of the contest. Students used notes provided in prompts to inspire their writing and cartooning entries.

Earlier in the week, students submitted hundreds of other entries – in 12 different categories – to an online contest that featured design, photography and online categories.

“Teaching students the bedrock skills of writing, editing, designing and photography is what our contest is all about,” said Eric Thomas, KSPA executive director. “The judges for the contest look for solid grasp of the fundamentals first and then seek entries that go above and beyond with creativity. This year’s winners showcased both creative excellence and solid skills.”

KSPA enlists the help of journalism teachers, professional journalists, university faculty members and other journalism experts to judge the entries.

— Submitted