Tuesday, March 19, 2024

Dragon Media, KDGN Awarded Top Honors at State Journalism Conference

This week UIL Journalism announced winners of the annual state competitions for scholastic journalism and Carroll’s Dragon Media program was presented with nine awards and top-level critiques. The Interscholastic League Press Conference is usually held the first weekend in May at the University of Texas, but due to closures, winners were announced online by Jeanne Acton, UIL Journalism director.

Carroll Senior High and High School journalism students involved in Dragon Media’s broadcast and publications brought home the association’s highest rating, The Award of Distinguished Merit, for both the KDGN broadcast and “The Dragon” Yearbook in this year’s competition. In addition, the 2019 yearbook was the recipient of the Silver Star award. The prestigious Star award winners represent the top 10 percent of student publications in Texas. This is the second Star award for the program as the 2018 book received a Bronze Star.

In addition, the program brought home four Individual Achievement Awards. For these awards, students may submit entries ranging from news writing to sports photography to yearbook theme development. The competition is keen, and the champions represent the nation’s finest scholastic journalism. First-place awards were granted in Theme Selection and Development (Nicole James & Josh McSwain ‘19) and Infographic Design (Josh McSwain ‘19). Second-place awards were won for Index Spread (Josh McSwain ‘19) and Broadcast Graphics (Leif Messinger ‘20).

Finally, Tops in Texas awards were granted for Theme Selection and Development and Infographic Design. To win a Tops in Texas award, a student journalist or group of student journalists must first win the first-place award in their UIL classification. Carroll is a 6A school so all of the Tops in Texas award winners essentially won first place twice. These were the first Tops in Texas awards for the program.

Dragon Media is made up of students in grades 9-12 and produces KDGN, a twice-weekly broadcast, an online newspaper DragonMedia.org as well as the 450+ page “The Dragon” yearbook. The print and online publications are advised by Mrs. Natalie Brown and the 2019 yearbook was edited by Josh McSwain and Nicole James, 2019 Carroll graduates. Current yearbook editors are seniors Sarah Winch and Matthew Vinson, who also served on the editorial board of the 2019 book. KDGN is advised by Mrs. Jen Randall and senior Katherine Loomis serves as executive producer. You can follow these award-winning Dragon Media students on Instagram and twitter @slcdragonmedia.

(Photo cred: Dragon Media. The photo was taken early in 2019 School Year features the Dragon Media/KDGN editorial board. Back Row L-R: Peyton Brush, Caitlin Davidson, Melena Hunt, AJ Hunt, Avery Allen, Matthew Vinson, Katy Popovitch. Front Row: Darya Tadlaoui, Kailee McCall, Katherine Loomis, Sarah Winch)

An image of a family bowling and dining

Photo of a solar eclipse