SPRINGFIELD — Lincoln Land Community College’s student newspaper, The Lamp, won the top staff award and 10 other individual journalism awards at statewide competition.
This is the second year in a row that The Lamp staff has won first place in the Mike Foster General Excellence Award. Furthermore, one staff member took second place in the Reporter of the Year award, the top individual reporting prize.
The awards were presented April 8 during the Illinois Community College Journalism Association conference, held at Harold Washington College in Chicago.
“We have a great group of people, each putting out great work,” said Tim McKenzie, assistant professor of journalism and humanities and The Lamp adviser. “A newspaper requires a lot of contributors, many working behind the scenes. This award reflects on how everyone is doing a great job.”
The judges said The Lamp had “a very ‘newsy’ paper with solid reporting/married to great photography.”
Additionally, eight different staff members earned the other 10 awards.
“This just confirms why the entire staff earned the general excellence award, showing everyone, not just a few people, are doing excellent work,” McKenzie said.
Lukas Myers of Taylorville won second place in Reporter of the Year. Judges reviewed a selection of his stories.
Judges commented: “Myers’ writing style is graceful and fluid, and his words flow naturally. His clips show he has the talent to write feature stories and also report about serious hard news topics on his campus. He is clearly ahead of many of his peers.”
Reporter of the Year is an open competition, meaning Myers competed against students from community colleges that are many times larger than Lincoln Land.
“Lukas is a great writer and reporter,” McKenzie said. “He weaved together stories with ease, and he always went above and beyond with his reporting to speak to a large number of people.”
Ryan Mazrim of Springfield took home four prizes: second place for news photo, second place for sports photo, honorable mention for feature photo, and second place for news story.
“Ryan is a very talented photographer and writer,” McKenzie said. “He pushes himself and demands a lot of himself. This is a strong reflection of his devotion to his craft.”
T’Ericka Stelivan of Springfield won second place for news column. Stelivan, along with Nathanael Herbert of Woodson and Kaylie Horrer of Springfield, won second place for News Story of the Year, for reporting on issues related to domestic abuse.
Teresa Brummett of Salisbury won second place for feature writing,
Tyler Allison of Springfield won second place for headline writing.
Ryan Wilson of Auburn won second place for sports news writing.
