At Franklin College in Franklin, Indiana, the Magpie staff earned the Hoosier Star Award for the fourth consecutive year and received a record number of Rowena Harvey Awards at an awards ceremony Feb. 27, hosted by the Indiana High School Press Association, an organization that supports student journalism across Indiana.
This year’s IHSPA convention was held later than anticipated and in a different format. Normally, awards are given at the general convention, where students attend workshops and activities. However, due to winter weather forecasts and school cancellations, the original event was canceled. Instead, an alternative luncheon was arranged and a few workshops took place before IHSPA presented the awards.
Looking at the awards, it is shown that the Social Media Winner was the Magpie staff. Some awards include work from multiple people, so they are credited to Magpie staff. Social media awards are credited to Magpie staff because multiple students contribute.
“I took over social media my sophomore year and from there, I truly put everything into it,” Social Media Editor Reyna Hernandez said. “When we started our social media, we were not consistently posting. We had nothing. And from there, we have added a Facebook and a TikTok account. We won the award for our Instagram. The Instagram’s been through a lot of growth, from hitting a follower mark to even being able to win these awards.”
As far as students are concerned, there are two types of awards, the Hoosier Star and the Harvey Awards. The Hoosier Star recognizes the entire publication and the Harvey Awards are more individual honors. For most Harvey Award categories, there is a certain number of entries that can be submitted. Generally, each entry cannot include more than four samples of student work. The quality of the journalistic material, the originality of the subject matter, the consistency of the publication’s style and the use of verbal and/or visual aspects will all be taken into consideration when judging entries. There are numerous individual categories and this year, Magpie hit a new accomplishment.
“This was our record,” advisor Chris Pearcy said. “This was the most individual awards we’ve won in the Harvey Awards. It’s the most first-place [positions] we’ve gotten. I went back and I looked at our records. It was a record by just one. It was cool. That has been a sign of growth for us over the years, with the Harvey Awards, from getting seconds and thirds to very consistently getting a lot of firsts. When they were listing off the awards, one of the other advisors from Southport looked at me and said, ‘You need help carrying all those awards home?’ Because our name was up there a ton, a lot more than a lot of schools. We were definitely one of the schools that got recognized and put out there a lot.”
The Harvey Award is given each year to recognize outstanding student and staff achievements in responsible, effective journalism. The award honors the dedication of the late Rowena Harvey, who led the Indiana High School Press Association and advised student publications at Fort Wayne South Side High School for 40 years. IHSPA divides schools by the average staff size. For the Harvey Awards, they are usually grouped into Divisions I, II and III, with Division I being the smallest and Division II having the largest number of schools. Magpie is in Division II, making the competition a sizable force.
“Honestly, I was a bit surprised by how many we got,” Managing Editor Jackson Lythgoe said. “I was expecting a bit on par with last year, maybe a bit less, but not that many.”
There is a level of difficulty. National awards, such as the Pacemaker, are more difficult to obtain, but the Hoosier Star also requires significant work. Many schools do not receive it consistently. Earning it requires sustained effort and consistency. The Harvey Awards involve competition with student journalists across the state for three places in each category. Some categories receive more submissions than others. Indiana has many student journalism programs, so the competition includes many participants.
“Magpie has become an integral part of the community in school,” Lythgoe said. “We’ve become a very successful program. I think all these awards show how successful Magpie is becoming. People have reached out to us and told us how good our coverage has been about certain events and topics.”
Within the IHSPA hierarchy, the Hoosier Star is generally considered more prestigious than the Harvey Awards. It is the highest honor a publication in the state may receive for its overall quality. The first known time that Magpie applied for it was in 2023; it won and has been continuing to do so every year.
“The Hoosier Star Award is a recognition as a publication that you are doing great things in student journalism in Indiana,” Pearcy said. “For us, our first Hoosier Star was a surprise. The first year we did it, I just submitted it because we wanted to figure out where we were with the publication. It was our first year as a website and we wanted to see where we needed to go next. We were surprised when we got announced as a finalist and then surprised again when we actually won. It was a really cool moment and so, for us, the Hoosier Star has become our benchmark of ‘Are we still doing things well?’ As we try to do stuff more nationally, knowing that we are still at least at this level is an important recognition for us every year.”
Students on the Magpie staff also shared their reactions to the publication’s Hoosier Star win.
“I feel very proud,” Multimedia Editor Veda Fagner said. “I like that it’s four years in a row because I mean, we’ve won it every year that I’m on staff, so that feels kind of cool. I’m not saying it’s because of me, but I just like that. I just feel very impressed with the work that everyone on staff has done.”
For the Hoosier Star, a judge is assigned a website and given a rubric, which includes feedback over strengths and weaknesses of the categories: “Coverage/Content,” “Writing/Editing,” “Breaking News,” “Interactivity/Multimedia” and “Design/Navigation.” When finished with the commentary, the judge has to decide the rating, which ranges from superior, excellent, good, average and needs improvement. If the first judge gives a superior or an excellent rating overall, the site advances to a finalist. When it goes to a second judge and they confirm that the site is excellent or superior a second time, that’s when the Hoosier Star is won. This method has been reported as flawed in that the judges don’t all judge the same.
“A lot of judges are retired advisors, so sometimes it’s just a matter that their view of journalism has become dated over time,” Pearcy said. “They’re not as involved in the current going on. Maybe they ran a physical newspaper, not a news website. Some judges nitpick everything. They’re really hard and if you’re not doing every single thing, they’re gonna dock you on it. Which, even the top nationally ranked news journals and programs in the country don’t do everything. Others just don’t give you very much feedback. They might mark you low on something, but don’t explain why. It’s subjective and some judges are really good at understanding that it is supposed to be an educational tool.”
Magpie’s website became the 23rd distinguished SNO site in the nation Mar. 2, an accomplishment that followed the publication’s success at the state level with the Hoosier Star and Harvey Awards.
“I think it really just shows how much work and effort we put in,” Hernandez said. “With it being my fourth year on staff, it really just means that we’ve managed to win the award all four years. It’s just something to really be proud of, even the growth that I’ve seen in Magpie over the last four years. From a middle schooler in 8th grade when I was reading stories on the Magpie, to joining Magpie when we had our own official SNO site, it’s really just been a lot of growth in seeing how far we’ve come, as well as the bonds we’ve built as a class. I’ve seen other people leave and we’ve seen new people come in. It really just shows how much of a family we are and that, no matter who we have, we’re gonna put our best foot forward.”
