The Southfield Jay recently received several state awards from the Michigan Interscholastic Press Association.
The newspaper staff received a Spartan Award – the highest award in the state of Michigan – for its website. Only two high school newspapers in the state received that honor. Senior Margarita Gaines is the school newspaper’s webmaster.
Also, the paper received an “Excellence” award for overall content, design and photography.
The editor-in-chief is senior Maria Burden, who will attend Central Michigan University on scholarship in the fall to study journalism.
Several newspaper staff members also received individual awards for their work:
Senior Karlie Hennings won a first place award for Sports Photography.
Senior August Miller won a second place award for Human Interest Feature writing. Her prize-winning piece was a first-person account about her travails of growing up as a biracial child. Miller is half Puerto Rican and half Korean.
Senior Margarita Gaines won a second place award for her comic strip about life as a high school student.
Nine Jay staffers also received honorable mentions in the statewide competition. They are senior Jameelah Muhammad, for News Writing; junior Daquitta Clements, for Sports News; junior Jerry Woodliff, for Editorial Cartooning; senior Margarita Gaines, for a second comic strip about high school life; and a group of five students received an honorable mention for Front Page Layout. They are seniors Miller, Leah McMaster and Carmen Selley, and juniors Tyra Moorehead and Daquitta Clements.
Newspaper Adviser Diane Hofsess was one of eight journalism teachers in Michigan nominated by her students for the Golden Pen Award for her work with her newspaper students.