By Aariston Dawson

Four Southfield Jay staff members won national awards this month from Quill & Scroll in the 2013 International Writing and Photo Contest.

They are as follows:

• Emanne Johnson, for photo illustration
• Jonathan Moore, for editorial writing
• Aariston Dawson, for sports writing
• Morgan Barbour, for review writing

Several Jay staff members also won state awards for journalism from the Michigan Interscholastic Press Association (MIPA). The awards were announced at a conference at the Lansing Center on April 15.

First Place winners were as follows:

• Emanne Johnson, for portrait photography
• Emanne Johnson, for diversity reporting
• Shannon Stoudemire, for video reporting of sports news
• And the writing team of Elijah Baker, Jonathan Moore and Morgan Barbour, for in-depth feature writing.

Second Place winners were:

• Shannon Stoudemire, for video reporting of an event
• Krista Wilson, for sports news writing

And Jonathan Moore won a third place for editorial writing.

They Southfield Jay’s website, southfieldtimes.org, won a gold award from MIPA for journalism excellence. The website was built by Southfield High junior Carl Jones.

Several staff members received honorable mentions from MIPA:

• Elijah Baker, for editorial cartooning
• Emanne Johnson, for health reporting
• Jonathan Moore, for profile writing
• Michai Dixson, for feature writing
• The team of Morgan Barbour and Emanne Johnson, for review writing.

The Southfield Jay has been publishing for 60 years and transitioned from a print paper to a print and online publication 17 years ago.  It is uncensored by school administrators.