The Zephyrhills High School journalism students competed at the Florida Scholastic Press Association Convention, a celebration of more than 1,1000 student journalists from around the state and their advisors.
“It was definitely an intimidating experience at first because of so many students working on journalism projects,” staff writer Daniel Coulson said. “But after that shock, it was really cool to see all of these journalism students competing and making cool media projects.”
The Bulldogs participated in various competitions and will learn the results and receive judge feedback this week. However, it wasn’t all about competing against other student journalists. ZHS students got to spend the next day participating in learning sessions. Some of these sessions are designed to help a student see what future they could have in journalism, while others teach students valuable skills and procedures to turn their publication into an award-winning publication.
Yearbook Managing Editor Tessa Starnes is excited to share what she’s learned from the event with her staff. She thinks it will help with next year’s book.
“We got many ideas on how to set up our theme for next year,” she said. “We learned how to manage deadlines and think on our feet in high stress situations. It was also nice to go because it was a great team bonding event, and we understand each other as a team.”
Starnes wants to take the ZHS Yearbook to the next level and be up on that stage with other All-Florida winners.“
We can use this feedback to help us get on that stage to win awards for ZHS,” she said. “We just need work together and work as a giant team to better. We don’t want to settle. We can absolutely be an award winning program.”