St. Joe journalists honored at conference
MADISON – St. Joseph Catholic School students were honored for their journalism achievements at the Mississippi Scholastic Press Association Fall 2022 Convention last week.
The MSPA, a state organization for high school journalists, held the convention on the University of Southern Mississippi campus on Oct. 26.
More than 400 high school journalism students from across Mississippi, including 33 from St. Joe attended the convention.
Picarella, one of several students to be honored, won first place in a statewide competition for a multimedia sports story she wrote as part of St. Joe’s weekly newscast, “Bruin News Now.”
“I’m so excited that my story won,” Picarella said. “I worked hard before the school year started on the St. Joe football story for our back-to-school edition of our newscast. I wanted students on the first day of school to have an accurate and entertaining preview of our football season. The story was a lot of fun to produce.”
Picarella and other St. Joe journalism students received their honors during an awards program that capped the MSPA convention.
At the convention, students attended breakout sessions to improve their yearbook and video newscasts, outline journalism education and career opportunities after high school, and other topics related to high school journalism.
The Best of Show awards honored work created from the start of the school year through Oct. 23, the Sunday before the convention, in a limited number of print and multimedia categories.
Along with Picarella’s multimedia sports story award, St. Joe students took home awards such as: Trey Compretta (Multimedia Creative Finalist), Jeanne Beebe (News and Feature Photo Finalist), and Emma O’Brien (Portrait Photo Finalist).
“Bruin News Now” was also a finalist for Multimedia Broadcast Best of Show.
Students also won several Best of Mississippi awards, which honored yearbook work during the previous school year, such as: Ashmit Malhotra (Academic Photo Finalist), Jeanne Beebe (Feature Photo Finalist), and Camryn Cassreino (Yearbook Feature Spread and Yearbook Sports Spread Finalist).
St. Joe Principal Dr. Dena Kinsey said the students do an amazing job in photography, the yearbook, the news website, sports broadcasting, and their weekly video newscast.
“These awards are just a small fraction of the outstanding work they do every day,” Kinsey said. “They are just one example of the hard-working, dedicated students at St. Joe who are prepared for the rigor of college life by learning valuable life skills.”
St. Joe journalism students produce “Bruin News Now” every Friday, the “BNN Midweek Paws” news update on Wednesdays, The Shield yearbook every fall, and live radio and streaming video coverage of regular season varsity football, basketball and baseball games.
St. Joseph Catholic School is located at 308 New Mannsdale Road in Madison.