ISD Students Bring Home Numerous Awards from Mizzou J-Day

It was a headline-making day for ISD high school journalism students at the 47th Missouri Interscholastic Press Association’s (MIPA) Journalism Day at the University of Missouri-Columbia. Facing a greater level of scrutiny from MIPA judges than ever before, ISD students brought home more than 100 awards for print and broadcast journalism excellence.

“Scoring and award ranking scales were changed this year in order to make each level more difficult to reach,” said Jason Stacy, William Chrisman journalism teacher and one of three nominees for Journalism Teacher of the Year in Missouri. “That makes our accomplishments district-wide that much more impressive.”

ISD students won 16 All-Missouri Awards- the highest award given. William Chrisman’s Kayla Burns won one of the school’s two All-Missouri award and won five awards overall. Her classmate and fellow journalism student Alexis Riggs won eight. Van Horn won 13 total- four of them All-Missouri and Truman’s journalists won 51 awards, including 10 All-Missouri (For a complete list of winners, click here).  Members of Truman Heritage yearbook staff received six of the school’s 10 All-Missouri awards.

“I was really excited because the whole staff has worked so hard and I feel like it’s starting to pay off,” said Truman senior Kendra Amos, editor-in-chief of the Heritage yearbook.

“Considering it’s my first year, I seriously didn’t expect to come home with many awards, definitely not All-Missouri,” said Truman junior photographer Darrien Smith. “But it has been an awesome experience, both getting the awards and all the hard work.”

More than 1,000 students statewide were on campus for the day-long event, which included several journalism seminars and workshops.

Truman’s Journalism Day students

Van Horn students Ivan Alessio and Anthony Alberto. Alessio won an All-Missouri Award for his mini-documentary- the second straight year he has won top honors.