At their last trip of the school year, students in Journalism II earned a total of nine awards at the 2019 JEA/NSPA Spring Convention in Anaheim, Calif. last week.

“Ever since I joined the Southwest Shadow, I’ve been to every trip so far,” junior Eriyale Williams said. “I like traveling, and every trip is a new and fun experience to be a part of. Most of my favorite high school memories so far have come from Journalism trips.”

Both staffs won seventh place for Best in Show, and the Southwest Shadow won the Online Pacemaker. Furthermore, six students earned awards for their personal write-offs.

“I am proud we won a Pacemaker award because we tried really hard to push out an article every single day to meet the Pacemaker standards,” junior Kyle Bayudan said. “There were times where I wanted to give up and drop everything, but the drive to win the Pacemaker gave me motivation to keep going.”

At the competition, Green Valley High School and Spring Valley High School were also winners from Nevada. Green Valley students won several honorable mentions in their write-offs. Spring Valley won fifth Best in Show for Newspaper Tabloid.

“I won an honorable mention, which I didn’t expect because I did not get enough information for the topic at all,” senior Zhen Yu said. “I rushed the logo for less than an hour before submitting it. I went through a couple of changes, but I definitely did not do as much as I wanted to.”

The next convention will take place in Washington, D.C. from Nov. 21- to 24.

“Going on the Anaheim trip was really scary and I didn’t know how to react, by the time we got there I got more comfortable with everyone,” freshman Dean Carrasco said. “Even though I didn’t win [my write-off], I learned what it’s like to go to the competition. I learned that it’s not all about focusing on what the competition is being prepared at what they’re going to throw at you.”