Journalism Students Win Awards in Nebraska Press Women Contest

Mar 20, 2024

The statewide contest was very competitive this year. There were 369 entries in 23 categories. First place winners will go on to compete in the national competition. Click on the links to see their winning entries.

Alexa Leiting – 1st place layout

Dalton Heller – 1st place video sports story

Dalton Heller

Ella Erickson – 2nd place editorial cartoon

Artist Statement: The whole piece is created from scratch, as it was started on a blank page on an IPad with the program Procreate. Nothing in the cartoon is pulled from other sources and no references were used in the creation of the piece. The finished design was created with multiple layers. Clipping masks and overlay options were used to create a dramatic lighting effect to give the piece more feeling and add more contrast between components in the cartoon. The cartoon was made with a singular brush option (flat brush) that the art program provides. Overall the cartoon took around an hour and a half to complete. (Ella Erickson)

Shelby Neeley – 2nd place column

Rylee Newman – 2nd place editorial

Chase Zagurski – 2nd place review

Ali Arias – 3rd place cartooning

Artist Statement: This piece involves characters from shows and movies affected by the writer’s strike. I drew these characters as if they were in a meeting with the writer except there is no writer. They all have worried to nonchalant faces expressing their concern and unawareness. I used pencil and a fine tip marker as my media so that I could easily shade and extenuate their outlines. I decided to not work with color to give more of a gloomy and serious vibe. As I drew the background I envisioned what a meeting room would look like with big open windows leveling with the clouds, plain walls, and carpet instead of tiles. With the characters, I had used reference photos to make sure I drew them correctly. Drawing the actors, i had specifically used reference photos of their side profiles. As I searched for side profiles of the cartoon characters I noticed that looking for a picture and even watching clips of the character was difficult because they are rarely originally drawn showing their side profile so i had to keeping redrawing the character until it looked “right”. I drew this in my sketch book and then scanned the artwork on a flatbed scanner and used Photoshop to pop the contrast a little and clean up any extra marks or dirty white areas with the eraser tool. With this art piece I definitely had to make sure I drew the characters and actors carefully so that the viewers could easily identify who they all are, making it a tedious task. I would have my classmates look at the art to receive feedback on whether or not I had accomplished my goal. (Ali Arias)

Jamison Hanway – 3rd place feature photo

Adam (played by Rugor Aden) sings “Go.” (Jamison Hanway)

Rylee Newman – Honorable Mention news story

Robert Baker III – Honorable Mention review

Kane Good – Honorable Mention sports photo

Senior running back, Addison Zavala takes off down the field. (Kane Good)

Tate Williams – Honorable Mention sports photo

We Are Millard South

We Are Millard South

We Are Millard South

Journalism Students Win Awards in Nebraska Press Women Contest

We Are Millard South

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