The Pennsylvania Scholastic Press Association (PSPA) Competition is held annually for journalism and broadcast students. This year, the regional competition was held at Slippery Rock University on Nov. 1. There were 18 Freedom students who competed.
Students were able to compete in an abundance of categories: caption writing, photography, poetry, broadcast, spread design and various newspaper and yearbook writing events. Freedom students competed against other high school students from Slippery Rock and Grove City. While students were not competing, they could participate in learning sessions revolving around newspaper or broadcast, such as “Impacting Change Through Documentaries” or “How Sports and Media Grow Together.”
“This year I had the opportunity to delve deeper into a subject I did not know much about through one of the breakout sessions. It was an incredibly educational and joyful experience,” Calla Reynolds (11) said.
The day started with opening remarks and guidelines about how the competition would be formatted. At 9 a.m., students were escorted to either a learning session or competition room. Everyone competing went to the same room, and all the events were completed on paper. Although, students were allowed to use their phones to look up stylist pointers. After everyone finished competing around 10:30 a.m., all students went to a final session, where they had multiple options of what they could learn about.
“I really enjoyed competing in yearbook spread design because…it really allowed my creativity to flourish,” Alex Micon (11) said.
After all the sessions were over, lunch was served in the Smith Student Center Theater. The keynotes speaker, Eric Davies, spoke about his journey in digital media and how he used his experience to complete day to day tasks.
“I enjoyed seeing the campus, meeting new people and developing my photography skills,” Anna Majors (10) said.
Photography, podcast and broadcast students had to pre-submit material for the competition. The two broadcast students who volunteered to go, Riley Tokar (12) and Kara Aland (12), made a video on Cafe 116, which was also featured in the Bulldog Beat. Photography students pre-submitted photos in categories of academics, frozen action, “anything music” and personal profile. At the competition, they were responsible for walking around campus and in the competition rooms to take pictures. One of the photos they took would be submitted to their final portfolio if they qualify for the state competition.
The regional competition is the preliminary round in order to advance to states. Students must place first in their event to qualify for states, held at Penn State’s main campus.