Five Okawville Journalists Qualify For State

Okawville journalism students had the opportunity to compete in the IHSA Sectional competition on Saturday, April 9th. The event was held virtually as students competed at their schools.  Okawville had many students compete in the sectional. 

Okawville placed 5th as a team in the sectional, going against much larger schools like Edwardsville and Belleville West. To advance to state, a student must place third or higher in their competition to move on. The top 6 in each category would receive medals. 

Several students placed at the sectional level for Okawville. Laura Cook placed fourth in Feature Writing and fifth in Review Writing.  Paige Riechmann placed fourth in Yearbook Copy Writing and sixth in Advertising.  Alyssa Gavin and Logan Jung placed fifth in Yearbook Theme Development.  Macie Staley placed fifth in Newspaper Design and sixth in Yearbook Layout Double-Page Spread.  Max Snyder placed fifth in Photo Story Telling.

Five students advanced to the IHSA State Journalism Finals on Friday, April 22nd.  Hannah Miller, Megan Rennegarbe, and Ellie Frederking placed second in Video News and qualified for the State Finals.  Jared Juenger qualified for two events, as he place third in both News Writing and Sports Writing.  Kylie Buehler finished third in Editorial Writing and also qualified for the State Finals.  

The IHSA State Journalism competition is held in Normal, Illinois and this year more specifically, it was held at Heartland Community College. The Okawville qualifiers left at 5:00 AM to make the competition on time. It was a very long day for the students but was also fun and memorable and something that they will never forget.

Competitions ranged from 9:30-1 and then the awards ceremony was held at 3:00. The Okawville competitors couldn’t stay due to sports conflicts. While none of the competitors placed at state, they represented Okawville well and showed off their strengths against much larger competition.