Gallup Awards

Georgia

Athens — Clarke Central High School, Odyseey
“An Odyssey of their own feature shows how much being part of OMG positively affected former students, which is a testament to the program. Journalism offers many transferable skills for those who wish to go into other industries, and as Kennae Hunter indicated, participation in high school journalism is a great way for students to rise above their collegiate competition.”

Missouri

Saint Charles — Francis Howell North High School, FHN Today
“The visual personality of the Messenger is professional and controlled, from typography to headline/deck packages, to illustrations and photos. The design structures are reader-friendly and attractive and never take attention away from the coverage.”
Chesterfield — Marquette High School, The Messenger
“The Messenger includes a wide range of coverage, including stories about regional or national issues that have been localized to the school. … Editorially, it seems there is a push to keep coverage student-focused, with the latitude to write stories like the recycle story, that branch into a broader issue with a clear focus on how students may interact with that issue on campus.”
Nixa — Nixa High School, Wingspan
“Wingspan celebrates successes, like the new performing arts center and the passing of a bond issue that means much-needed construction at Nixa High School. At the same time, stories in every issue focus on legitimate concerns, like getting quality sleep, feeling overworked, and affording prom attire, along with the very real mental health struggles that all students face today.”

Nevada

Las Vegas — Southwest Career and Technical Academy, The Southwest Shadow
“The Southwest Shadow online news program [is] excellent. Great leadership. Great advising. Great dedication by editors and staff. They all add up to make the site plus social media one of the best programs I have run across.”

Ohio

Liberty Township — Lakota East High School, Spark
“You provide a service to your readers but also to the wider scholastic journalism community by showing the power of student voices. You also successfully combine the power of the word with the power of the visual in a way that seeks to create a cohesive message both verbally and visually.”

Texas

Austin — MacCallum High School, The Shield
“The staff has rebalanced itself to create more room for online and social media presence, has revamped the process by which staff editorials are written, placed a focus on including photography, has established themes for each edition, and has improved and diversified design by looking to award-winning newspapers as models and having editors produce master classes based on those editions as inspiration.”

Virginia

McLean — McLean High School, The Highlander News
“The writing is consistently good. In all sections, stories have a clear thruline, and the writing clearly moves from one point to the next. Sourcing is consistently solid, and it is clear the students are thoughtful when selecting quotes to include in their stories. Based on the description of the editing process each story goes through, the students work hard to ensure accuracy and integrity in every story.”