State Championships aren’t just for sports. The Wyoming High School Student Press Association’s (WHSSPA) Wyoming High School Journalism Convention (WHSJC) is the state championship of high school newspaper and yearbook. The WHSJC provides yearbook and newspaper students with the opportunity to enter their work for the chance to win state titles and to attend workshops to strengthen their skills. The 2015-2016 Thunderbolt and EHS yearbook staffs attended this year’s WHSJC and even entered some of their work. The results were fantastic.

This year the Thunderbolt staff took home several awards. The Thunderbolt received the award for Allstate Online Newspaper and Allstate Runner Up Print Paper. Current Senior Editor of the Thunderbolt, Courtney Walston, also took home the Allstate Photographer Award and former Thunderbolt Senior Editor Emilygrace Piel took home the award for Allstate Runner Up Photographer. East High also swept the photography awards, with photographers: Courtney Walston, Emilygrace Piel, and Mickayla Welsh taking first in four out of six categories.

While the staffs of the EHS Thunderbolt and yearbook earned many awards, they also learned some valuable lessons. Some of these lessons came from the Ten Pillars of the West, the theme for the 2015-2016 WHSJC. The Ten Pillars of the West are the ten principles that cowboys in the old west strived to live their lives by. These ten principles were chosen as the theme for this year’s WHSJC because they represent what journalists in today’s world strive to do when they write stories. These Ten Pillars of the West were also chosen for the WHSJC theme because they encourage students to support free press and to fight to cover the stories that they want. Some of the Ten Pillars of the West that students at the WHSJC were introduced to include ‘2. Take Pride in Your Work’ and ‘4. Do What Has to Be Done’.

This year’s WHSJC provided students with the opportunity to attend workshops to enhance their skills in order to make their schools’ newspapers and yearbooks even better. All of the students in attendance at the WHSJC were also able to receive critiques on their newspapers and yearbooks to find the areas where their publications are lacking in order to make them the best they can be.

The 2015-2016 was a great experience for the EHS Thunderbolt and yearbooks staffs. The students were able to learn valuable lessons and were given the motivation and the tools that they need to succeed in putting out great publications. The staffs of the EHS Thunderbolt and yearbook are going to continue working hard to make East High’s newspaper and yearbook the best in town.