A group of seven LION Newspaper students as well as two Tabulae yearbook students attended the annual National Scholastic Press Association/Journalism Education Association national high school journalism convention held in Philadelphia, Penn., on Nov. 7-10. 

LION students participated in the JEA National Student Media contests. The students each wrote an article at the competition or submitted work prior to it. Award winners from the LION newspaper include: Sophia D’Antonio ‘25, who received excellence in sports writing; Maddie Walsh ‘25, who received an honorable mention in review writing; and Autumn Schmidt ‘25, who received an honorable mention in commentary writing.

“I think it’s important [to go to the convention] because there’s so many things that can happen there that can’t happen in the regular school day and our regular time together as a LION newspaper staff,” LION Newspaper advisor Jason Scales said. “[There were] different perspectives, different lessons and just different ways of doing journalism.”

While Tabulae usually goes to the spring convention, yearbook members Brenik Griffin ‘25 and Nicholas Edwards ‘25 also attended because they had previously been notified they were going to be recognized for awards. Tabulae adviser Joseph Maffey traveled with them. 

From last year’s yearbook work, Sydney Matysik ‘24 won the 2024 Photo of the Year contest, and the 2023-2024 Digital Marketing team (Riley McCarthy ‘24, Greta Kulat ‘24, Edwards, and Griffin) were named national Finalists for “Social Media Promotion.” Lauren Gruca ‘24 was named a finalist for “Photojournalist of the year,” a portfolio-based category. 

“[The students] did historically like they do every year, ” Scales said about his students who attended. “We usually have between 25%-75% of the students place in contests and this year we had three out of seven, so upholding the high standards that past staff members have.”

Each LION student was entered into a different category of writing, because you cannot enter two people in the same category, Scales said. 

“Receiving an honorable mention gave me the confidence that what I have been doing so far has been good but there is still room for improvement which gives me a lot of motivation,” LION In-depth editor Maddie Walsh ‘25 said.