JACKSON, Tenn. — Feb. 22, 2005 — 51ÉçÇř’s student newspaper won second place in the “Best College Newspaper” category of the Southeast Journalism Conference in Ruston, La., Feb. 17-19.
The Cardinal & Cream ranked higher than student newspapers from universities such as Auburn University, the University of Mississippi and Mississippi State University in this year’s “Best of the South” competition. Only The Vanderbilt Hustler finished higher than the Union publication for overall excellence.
In addition to the “Best College Newspaper” award, staff members from the Cardinal & Cream won 11 other awards at the conference. Last year the Union paper won seven awards.
SEJC membership includes more than 60 colleges in Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Mississippi and Tennessee, including most of the state and private schools with journalism programs.
“I just feel like our students did outstanding work,” said Michael Chute, the Cardinal & Cream’s faculty adviser and journalism professor at Union. “It’s definitely an honor for Union to be ranked with these other Division I schools. We don’t do our work for awards, but the awards are validation that we’re doing a good job.”
Last year the Cardinal & Cream placed fourth in the SEJC “Best College Newspaper” category behind Alabama, Louisiana State University and Mississippi State. This year Union moved ahead of those schools, as MSU dropped to seventh place and Alabama and LSU didn’t make the top 10.
Cardinal & Cream staff members placed in the top 10 in six of the nine major newspaper categories, and the online version of the publication finished in fifth place. Individual award winners were:
-- Julie Pickard, second place, “Best Sports Writer”
-- Hannah Persall, second place, “Best Newspaper Page Layout Designer”
-- Kristen Ulmer, third place, “Best News Reporter”
-- Persall, fifth place, “Best News Graphic Designer”
-- Jonathan Blair, sixth place, “Best Press Photographer”
-- Alaina Kraus, sixth place, “Best Arts and Entertainment Writer”
-- Jill Martin, ninth place, “College Journalist of the Year”
SEJC allows each school to enter one student in each category.
Winning on-site awards for the Cardinal & Cream were the team of Martin, Justin Belsly and Heather Hagood, second place in the “Public Relations Category,” and Amanda Herron, third place in the “Feature Writing” category.
Five students attended the conference at Louisiana Tech University –Hagood, editor-in-chief; Martin, managing editor; Jesse Lyautey, news editor; and Herron and Belsly, life and style co-editors.