On the morning of Nov. 14, St. Paul’s School’s Paper Wolves, Guerilla Wolves, and Conifer staff boarded SUV’s and minivans and made their way to the Louisiana Scholastic Press Association (LSPA) Conference hosted on the campus of Louisiana State University in Baton Rouge, returning that afternoon with over a dozen awards.

“Winning so many awards was delightfully exhilarating,” Ross Allbritton, member of all three SPS student media outlets, said.

Members of the SPS student media, along with representatives from other high schools throughout the state, attended seminars, listened to speakers, including Emmy-nominated  journalist, Melanie Hebert, competed in on-site competitions, and received awards for their published works.

“The LSPA Conference really improved this year. There was much more for students to do at the conference, allowing them to learn or work with professionals,” said Paper Wolf Editor James Carrere, who returned to the conference for a second year.

In addition to a variety of on-site writing and editing competitions, awards were also given in several categories of published works for both print and broadcast in the areas of writing, design, editing, and photography.

The Guerilla Wolves won a total of five awards including both first and third place for Entertainment Pak, Feature of Skit; first and second place in on-site Video Editing; and an Honorable Mention for overall Broadcast Program.

The Paper Wolf won first place for Online/Digital Newspaper (overall). When announcing the award, Director of LSU Student Media offered high praise to St. Paul’s student journalists, referring to them as “pioneers in the world of scholastic digital publishing.”

Individual awards for published works went to Thomas Huval for first place for Sports Column Writing, Connor Mahony for second place in News Writing, Chris Rogers for third place in Sports Writing, Adam Cannon for third place in Column Writing, Stephen Hammond for third place in Feature Writing, and Kole Gorney for Honorable Mention in the Feature Photo category. In the on-site competitions, Paper Wolf Editor James Carrere won third place for Copy Editing, and Chris Rogers won first place for Headline and Cutline Writing.

St. Paul’s competed against and attended seminars with students from Baton Rouge Magnet High School, Fontainebleau High School, Grace King High School, Catholic High School, Archbishop Shaw High School, and many other Louisianan high schools. Seminars included Video Journalism, Story-Telling, Excellence in Writing, Media Ethics, and more. Students were also treated to a tour of LSU’s student media.

Representing Guerilla Wolves at this year’s conference were Kole Gorney, Thomas Williamson, Kenny Ross, Adam Cannon, John Meyers, Brandon Gallego, and Casey Fitzmaurice.

Paper Wolf staff members at the conference included  Kole Gorney, James Carrere, Adam Cannon, Ross Allbritton, Jacob Broussard, and Trey Couvillion.

Representing the Conifer were Ben Kenny, Michael Thomas, Jimmy Farris, and Ross Allbritton.