Representatives of the ODYSSEY staff attend the National Scholastic Press Association conference in Washington D.C.
By ROBERT WALKER – Digital Managing Editor
The ODYSSEY Staff attended the National Scholastic Press Association conference in Washington D.C. on Nov. 6 – 9.
WASHINGTON — 13 members of Clarke Central High School’s ODYSSEY Newsmagazine staff attended the “We the Media” National High School Journalism Convention in Washington, D.C. from Nov. 6 – 9. The convention, organized by the Journalism Education Association-National Scholastic Press Association, hosted over 6200 attendants from across the globe.
The conference opened with a keynote speech by investigative journalist and All the President’s Men author Bob Woodward of Watergate fame.
“Mr. Woodward has obviously been doing this a long time and I’m amazed that you can still stay passionate about this work,” ODYSSEY Newsmagazine Managing Editor and senior Brittney Butler said. “He also said you can get something wrong and that that’s ok. That meant a lot to me.”
Along with adviser David Ragsdale, seniors Nicholas Byrne and Robert Walker presented a session called “Same story, different lens” for more than 200 students. The focus of the session was to present stories readers typically expect in a scholastic publication, but with a new look.
“I never presented a session before, so presenting to 200 people seemed daunting, but I was pleasantly surprised by the outcome, and it was really rewarding,” Byrne said.
iliad Literary-Art Magazine Editor-in-Chief senior Ethan Crane and long-time iliad contributor Louise Platter presented a session entitled “Retire the old reliables,” with Ragsdale facilitating. The session, which focused on innovative ways of capturing poetry, hosted students from diverse backgrounds, according to Crane.
“There was really a wide scope of students and advisers attending the session and had students from Taiwan and an adviser from Kazakhstan,” Crane said.
ODYSSEY Newsmagazine seniors Aaron Holmes, Senior Copy Editor, and Chad Rhym, Visuals Coordinator, presented “Adversity and diversity” with Ragsdale. The session explored methods of tackling stories while considering racial, religious, cultural and economic demographics present within a readership.
[pullquote]“I never presented a session before, so presenting to 200 people seemed daunting, but I was pleasantly surprised by the outcome, and it was really rewarding,” Broadcast Manager Nicholas Byrne said. [/pullquote]
“Having presented together previously, Aaron and I were very comfortable with each other, but this conference was bigger than what we had done before,” Rhym said.
Staff members also attended classes taught by advisers and students from student-run and professional publications from across the country, in the hopes to advance their journalism skills.
Students participated in a Quiz Bowl competition for journalistic trivia, where three teams of four from the ODYSSEY staff were selected and participated. Two made it through to the knockout round after finishing highly in the written test section, and from there one team made it to the semi-finals.
“Quiz Bowl was a lot of fun,” Holmes said. “Regardless of how well we did, I think everyone who participated was glad to have the experience and enjoyed competing.”
On Saturday evening, there was also a general trivia competition in which the ODYSSEY team finished in third place.
The ODYSSEY and iliad both received critical recognition at NSPA. The iliad earned Seventh Place in the Best of Show competition. Additionally, Rhym was awarded Fourth Place in the Sports Reaction division of the Photo of the Year competition and ODYSSEY staffer Ella Sams was awarded Fifth Place in the Cartooning competition.
Other members of the group from CCHS were senior Makayla Richards, juniors Fear Churchwell, Mary Merritt, Kevin Mobley and Tiernan O’Neill and sophomore Sara Goodie.
“It was an enlightening and inspiring experience. I got to see what other publications are doing around the country and that has given me some new ideas on what we could be doing to ultimately enhance our publication,” Mobley said.
ODYSSEY Editor-in-Chief Louise Platter agrees, and feels that the convention was beneficial to the staff as a whole.
“NSPA was huge for us as a staff because it both opened our eyes to other publications with different styles than us,” Platter said. “And it helped everybody get a new perspective from what they experienced.”
