Journalism Education Association Annual Report

Prepared for the Denver Convention, Board meeting April 12, 2007

President Ann Visser, MJE

Happenings: For the first time in my presidency, I was able to attend the CSPA Convention in New York City in March. I presented one session with JEA Multicultural Commission Chair Norma Kneese and Norma, and I teamed with JEA member Carol Lange to present another session. It was great to be able to finally make this connection.

In February, I attended the Iowa High School Press Association Winter Thaw in Des Moines. Linda Puntney served as the primary speaker at the event. Regional Director Bob Bair and Iowa State Director Gary Lindsay were also in attendance. In late February, I met with members of the executive board to create a budget for the 2007-08 year.

Vice President Jack Kennedy, MJE

Happenings: I “reached out” to Virginia advisers last fall, to the TAJE convention in October, and to Illinois and Wisconsin advisers at the KEMPA Winter Retreat in March. Just another set of reminders that the coolest people I know are publications advisers!

Secretary Susan Hathaway Tantillo, MJE
Awards Committee Chair

Happenings: Since San Francisco, I have represented and promoted JEA as I taught at the ASNE Institute at Kent State University and presented student and adviser sessions at the Illinois State High School Press Association fall conference, Kettle Moraine Press Association fall conference and Tennessee Scholastic Press Association spring conference. In addition I attended a fall conference for journalism teachers at Eastern Illinois University where I promoted JEA and handed out membership materials and information about the Nashville convention. I have judged formally for NSPA, Ohio, Nebraska, Florida, New Jersey, Missouri and the Kettle Moraine Press Association along with offering advice informally in Illinois. I have also e-mentored new and soon-to-be advisers.

As Awards Committee Chair, I worked with Headquarters in summer 2006 to revise the Scholarships, Awards and Contests booklet. I will oversee the update again in 2007. Contest deadlines are now as consistent as they can be, and all contest materials are due to Headquarters by a receipt date, rather than a postmark date. We hope this consistency will make the awards nomination and selection process run more smoothly. We are still working to make sure jea.org is consistent with the booklet.

“Received by” dates:
Feb. 15: Journalist of the Year to state director
March 1: Student Journalism Impact, Cornerstone
March 15: Aspiring Young Journalist Award
July 1: Carl Towley, Medal of Merit, Lifetime Achievement, Friend of Scholastic Journalism (formerly Media Citation), Administrator of the Year, Ryan White
Oct. 1: Rising Star, Yearbook Adviser of the Year, Teacher Inspiration, Future Teacher Scholarships, Diversity Award
Dec. 1: Round 1 for First Amendment Press Freedom Award

In 2006-07 JEA implemented two new award programs.

As chair of the Junior High/Middle School Commission, Anita Wertz, CJE, oversees the Aspiring Young Journalist Award. The award encourages junior high/middle school students to continue with journalistic studies in high school. It is patterned after the Journalist of the Year Award. One overall winner and up to five runners-up will be selected each year. They will be announced at the spring convention’s Middle Madness where they will receive their certificates. Those who are present at JEA’s Sunday morning awards ceremony will be recognized.

As chair of the Multicultural Commission, Norma Kneese, MJE, will oversee the Diversity Award. The award honors a scholastic journalism, teacher, student media adviser or scholastic journalism group demonstrating a commitment to cultural awareness and encouraging a multicultural approach with its student media staff, media production and/or community. The honoree must be in the forefront in promoting diversity in the scholastic media arena and must have taken steps to break down walls of misunderstanding and ignorance. One winner will be selected. If the winner is a group, a representative of that group should receive the award. Honorable mentions may be given. Recognition will be during the spring convention awards luncheon. The winner’s travel and hotel will be paid to the spring convention where the winner will teacher at least one session on Friday or Saturday during the convention.

Thanks to all who have worked so hard to make our awards program an important part of our service to and support of those involved in scholastic journalism. In 2006-07 I invited the first class of JEA Rising Stars to join the committee for a one-year term. Six of the seven joined. The seventh chose to defer his committee service until 2007-08. Because this was such a good experience for all, I will continue to invite each class of Rising Stars to join the committee for a one-year term.

The 2006-07 Awards Committee members are Logan Aimone, MJE, representing Region 1; Carmen Wendt, CJE, representing Region 2; Bob Bair, MJE, Region 3 director; Wayna C. Polk, Region 4 director; Monica Hill, CJE, representing Region 5; Martha Akers, representing Region 6; Ron Bonadonna, CJE, Region 7 director; Liz Keeling, at-large member, Beth Britton, CJE, at-large member. Rising Stars serving on the committee for 2006-07: Ellen Austin, CJE; Karen Barrett, CJE; Jill Chittum, CJE; Tim Morley; Nikki Schueller, CJE; Sarah Verpooten, CJE.

Awards subcommittee chairs with responsibility for carrying out specific award recognition programs include H.L. Hall, MJE, National Yearbook Adviser of the Year and Cornerstone Award; Candace Perkins Bowen, MJE, Future Teacher Scholarships; Wayna C. Polk, National High School Journalist of the Year; Carol Lange, CJE, Ryan White Award; Kenson Siver, MJE, Student Journalist Impact Award; John Bowen, MJE, First Amendment Press Freedom Award; Anita Wertz, CJE, Aspiring Young Journalist Award; Norma Kneese, MJE, Diversity Award.

Past President H. L. Hall, MJE

Membership: Thanks to all the members of the Nashville local committee who made the convention in November a success. As local chair, they made my job easier. The convention helped increase the number of advisers in Tennessee who are now members of JEA. When I moved to Tennessee in 1999 there were six advisers from Tennessee who were members of JEA. Now there are 38. Thanks to everyone who attended the national convention, and a special thanks to all who presented sessions. The feedback was mainly positive.

Happenings: In January, I attended the mid-winter meeting of the scholastic education division of AEJMC at the Poynter Institute. Then I stayed to participate in the Scholastic Press Rights Commission meeting where we developed curriculum, including podcasts. Prior to the AEJMC meeting, I also attended a forum, which JIDeas sponsored on the First Amendment. At that forum, I also gave an historical overview of the history of the attempt to create an AP Journalism course. JIdeas is interested in renewing interest in such a course.

In March, Linda Puntney and Susan Tantillo represented JEA at the Tennessee High School Press Association's convention at Vanderbilt University. As executive director of THSPA, I appreciate their willingness to help. With their help, THSPA continues to grow in membership.

Linda Puntney and I met with the local committee for the Philadelphia convention in January. The committee is enthusiastic and has a lot of good ideas that will make the gathering a great one for convention delegates. In March we did a site visit to D.C. to select a hotel for the fall 2009 convention. We will make a proposal in Denver about which hotel we suggest. In May we plan to go to Seattle for a site visit for the spring 2010 convention, and we will also go to Anaheim to meet with the local committee to make plans for the spring 2008 convention.

Awards & Honors: In December, Linda Puntney and I journeyed to California to honor Dan Austin and Pete LeBlanc as Yearbook Advisers of the Year. We presented Dan's award to him at an early-morning faculty meeting, and we presented Pete's to him at an afternoon faculty meeting. I think both were surprised. It was particularly great to have Jim Jordan, Paul Enders and Casey Nichols, former YAOYs at the presentations. Thanks also to Ray Slye from Herff-Jones who helped make the presentations even more special. In addition to the YAOY awards, I also served on the selection committees for the First Amendment Award winners and the Cornerstone Award winner. All of these winners will receive their awards in Denver.

For the Board: I would hope the board would continue to find ways to encourage schools to apply for the Cornerstone Award and the First Amendment Awards. It's obvious from all the listserv messages that freedom of expression is under attack in schools nationwide. JEA must, as one of its major goals, find ways to overcome censorship in all phases of education.

Commission Chair Reports

NCTE Liaison Linda Barrington, MJE

Membership: All membership of JEA are automatically members of the NCTE Assembly for Advisors of Student Publications. Our group is the largest assembly in NCTE.

Happenings: The NCTE yearly convention will be held in New York, Nov. 22-27. At that convention we are sponsoring a number of events:

• Concurrent session called “The First Amendment: Keep It Strong” will be presented by David Bennet of the Illinois First Amendment Center.
• All-day Workshop: Pat Graff and Logan Aimone will present “Persuasive Writing and Teaching Tolerance: NonFiction Writing Techniques That Inspire Students.”
• Assembly Meeting for Advisers of Student Publications: I will hold a roundtable discussion of questions and concerns of advisers; I will also give away 5 copies of “Law of the Student Press” in a drawing.
• The booth includes information for advisers of literary magazines, yearbooks, and broadcast media. I also include information from the Illinois First Amendment Center and from ASNE about their summer program for advisers.

The concurrent session and all-day workshop are repeat events from last year, due to their overwhelming popularity and strong presentations.

Publications Chair Bradley Wilson

Happenings: For this report, I am including three budget items: C:JET magazine, NewsWire and the JEA Web site. These three have increasingly common missions. C:JET will end the year slightly over budget. However, this was almost completely balanced by increased ad sales. All four issues were well received and a complete index of articles, authors and advertisers is available online. NewsWire was replaced several years ago with C:JET Extra, a wrap around C:JET that served two purposes: a) to get members to become more aware of what their association was doing; and 2) to serve as a promotional tool for JEA. I will give the Board a complete report detailing the future of this publication based on comments received from members. My recommendation is that we continue C:JET Extra uninterrupted, as is. The beauty of having it on the outside of the magazine is that people can passively see it when it’s sitting on their desk and they’re on the phone, etc. Moving the content inside will circumvent that potential. Also, the low-quality/cheap paper stock protects the cover and can be easily removed.

Online, JEA increased its presence dramatically. The implementation of online Write-off registration drew a lot more people to the Web site. We also made changes to make it easier for people to get online and register.

For the Board: I will present a budget proposal in Denver to create an online HTML newsletter that will be available by (free) subscription to members. The budget item will include $1,500 for the hiring of a student at JEA headquarters to manage, create and distribute the newsletter at least twice a month, if not weekly. This will include a subscription to Constant Communication, a service for creating online newsletters that will cost about $360/year for around 2,000 subscribers.

Certification Commission Mark Newton, MJE

We completed the following projects:

• Several members of the commission met at Poynter in Florida to review both the CJE and MJE exams. We worked mainly on the CJE exam, eliminating outdated questions, rewriting questions and improving answers, and writing new questions and answers. We also reviewed the MJE exam.
• Members of the commission sent personal notes to JEA members urging them to get their certification. This project will continue.

We are exploring the following and welcome all comments:

• Rework the CJE exam to include a technology question. Our goal is to have this done by the fall 2008 convention.
• Post a database of all MJE projects on the JEA Web site.
• Develop a plan to market the fact that graduate credit from Kansas State can be earned for acquiring MJE status (project, exam, etc.).
• Establish an electronic clearinghouse for teachers to access when they need ammunition to save their jobs or programs; for example, links to studies that show journalism kids to better, state definitions of highly qualified, etc.
• Propose action research to demonstrate the academic value of journalism.

We will consider the following policy additions in Denver:

• Change the makeup of the commission from four high school and four college members to something with fewer college members.

Information items:

• Thank your to longtime member Julie Dodd for her service to the commission. Linda Puntney replaced Julie on the commission.
• In Denver we are planning to allow candidates to use computers on the exam.
• Our current active files show 398 CJEs and 104 MJEs.

Scholastic Press Rights Commission Chair John Bowen, MJE

As usual, commission members have been busy this year. In addition to the usual support for JEA members via the listserv, at state and regional conferences and in many other ways, commission members participated in a retreat in January at The Poynter Institute.

A partial list of Poynter activities started or completed includes:

• Podcasts about various aspects of the First Amendment.
• A podcast booth at the Denver convention and a session on podcasting. These are just a beginning of what commission members and others will add to our iTunes outreach program in the coming year. Look for commission member Vince DeMiero to have a podcast booth at the Denver Convention and a session on podcasting.
• A law and ethics JEA-pardy game available on the JEA Web site.
• This brainchild of commission member Dianne Smith and others is designed to give j-teachers a strong option to engage students. Accompanying the game are a series of lesson suggestions and resources about legal issues.
• Initial work on Character Education as journalism practices including a powerpoint on character education.
• Initial materials on how to cover controversy.

Commission members will meet in Denver to discuss additional work needed to complete these items. The commission will also set goals for this year and develop priorities for another Poynter retreat in 2008.

Outgoing Quill and Scroll executive director Dick Johns and Mid Atlantic outgoing regional director Tom Gayda have joined the commission. Ruth Bartz of Santa Barbara has re-joined the commission.

Commission members include Karen Barrett, Jane Blystone, Candace Perkins Bowen, John Bowen, Vince DeMiero, Merle Dieleman, Tim Dorway, Tom Eveslage, Karen Flowers, H. L. Hall, Deb Buttleman Malcolm, Janet McKinney, Tracy Ann Sena, Becky Sipos, Dianne Smith, Nancy Smith, Elisha Strecker, Randy Swikle, John Tagliareni, Fern Valentine.

Candace Perkins Bowen— Since November, I have: (a) Met with Richard Clapp, president, and Sandy Kruger, chief operating officer, of NEOLA twice in November and December. During the second meeting, we worked out language NEOLA could offer its client schools if they were willing to have open forum statements in their publications policies. Clapp, who purchased NEOLA several years ago, said he agreed policies giving students more freedom of expression had an educational basis. As a follow-up, Clapp was on a panel about publications policies during the AEJMC Scholastic Journalism Division Midwinter meeting at the Poynter Institute, Jan. 6, 2007; (b) Worked on podcasts about student legal issues with Vince DeMiero, Linda Puntney, Fern Valentine, Deb Buttleman Malcolm and Randy Swikle. So far six podcasts are available through iTunes, including several from Randy's essays and one about copyright. Additional scripts are nearly complete and need "young voices" taped and saved as audio files to go with the announcer's part.

Fern Valentine and Vince DeMiero — Our report, of course, is all about HB 1307 which is now in the Judiciary Committee in the Senate after passing the House. We have been buy lining up support. WJEA President Kathy Schrier who has been tireless in getting this support, received the Fern Valentine Freedom of Expression Award for her efforts. That made me personally very proud. We have had some over-zealous principals who have given us some ammunition but we will see it they just solidify the school administrators' opposition. We should know more by then.

Randy Swikle — The Illinois First Amendment Center is producing a 15-minute video CD geared for high school students and focusing on the First Amendment. HIP Advertising, a firm in Springfield, is producing it. Part of it is supposedly similar to Jay Leno's "Jaywalking." A high school student walks around school and interviews students about the First Amendment. If the timing is right, I will be able to bring a copy to Denver. They are hoping to have it in production by the end of March. The IFAC is translating its curriculums into Spanish from grades K-12. They still offer the materials free, but the receiver is expected to pay for postage.

Junior High/Middle School Commission Chair Anita Marie Wertz CJE

The Middle Madness session in Nashville was attended by 50 students and advisers. Winners of the Junior High/Middle School Mail-in Contest were announced for the first time at the Middle Madness session. Students received their evaluations and awards at that time. Attending schools picked up materials for those who did not come to convention. Entries, evaluations and awards for those not in attendance were returned via mail.

The Aspiring Young Journalist Award was announced, and questions answered. The young journalists and their advisers were excited about this new national award for the younger journalists.

At the Saturday morning Junior High/Middle School Commission meeting, the discussion was centered on the challenges of bringing junior high/middle school journalists to national conventions. Those challenges include cost, equity for attendance opportunities, supervision, and administrators not understanding of the benefits of convention attention. Individually, journalism advisers are trying to overcome these challenges.

Also discussed was the lack of broadcast competitions for junior high/middle school students. In Denver the Commission will explore the idea of adding a broadcast category to the existing mail-in contest, and develop a motion for the fall 2007 convention.

LISTSERV Liaison Candace Perkins Bowen, MJE

As of March 15, 2007, the JEAHELP list, open to all members, has 842 members, 121 more than the same time last year, and the JEATALK list, for officers, commission and committee chairs and regional and state directors has 80, up five from spring 2006.

Since last fall’s convention, I have monitored the lists daily, offering on- and off-list advice related to postings, deleting those who can’t figure out how to do it themselves, changing addresses for those who switched ISPs, adding new members and checking to see if those who ask to join are really JEA members. Pam Boller at JEA Headquarters has been invaluable with this. Although I can now go into the online member directory to see if someone requesting to be added is indeed a member, I still must notify Pam so our records match. If the request comes from someone who isn’t a member, Pam sends them an e-mail with details about joining.

My periodic reminders of various functional and ethical matters – such as how to REALLY get off the list, the rationale for not promoting anything with financial gain, how to avoid problems with spam-detecting software, etc. — have not been as frequent lately. The list “froze” several times in January because postings exceeded the 50-message limit, a fail-safe to keep a spam-crazy computer from flooding the list. With three out of five days hitting that number, I was afraid we were getting out of hand.

A few miscellaneous tidbits: This year no one posted a message on Christmas or News Year's Day, though two members wished us all “a very happy, healthy, prosperous and deadline meeting new year,” Dec. 29. Five of us posted something on Thanksgiving, however. Hot topics included the Canon Digital Rebel, the ever-present grammar questions (e.g. like v. as is), and 30+ messages in two days relating to the issues with being both a coach and a publications adviser.

It may not seem like much, but monitoring must occur daily – even on weekends — and can take from 15 minutes to an hour or more. And then there are the Current Events Quizzes, posted each Tuesday night to both JEAHELP and the RTNDF broadcast teacher list.

Regional Director Reports

Northwest Region 1 Director Steve Matson

Student Press Freedom Bills Go Before the Washington and Oregon Legislatures

While censorship continues to plague schools in the Northwest Region, two states have initiated bills before their legislatures that would protect student press freedoms. In Washington State, HB 1307 has traveled through committees and been approved by the House by a vote of 58-37. Unfortunately, support for the bill has divided along party lines; fortunately, Democrats support the bill and they are in the majority. When the bill came before the House Judiciary Committee on Jan. 26 dozens of students and their advisers filled the committee room, joining numerous supporters from the professional press and other scholastic press associations. This strong show of support, and the eloquent testimony to the committee apparently made a difference. Rep. Dave Upthegrove, who introduced the bill, has worked hard for its passage. His administrative assistant, Rachel Smith, wrote that, "After the bill's hearing in the House, a veteran lobbyist was overheard saying it was the best hearing he'd ever seen. We had a great turnout at that hearing and the testimony was compelling. Testimony came from a great cross-section of supporters: students, teachers, media attorneys, professional media."

HB 1307 goes before Washington’s Senate Judiciary Committee on March 27 where students and advisers hope to again make a significant show of support for the bill.

Also, shortly after Washington’s student press bill was introduced, Oregon introduced a student press bill of its own, which is in committee.

Advisers from Oregon and Washington appreciate all the fantastic help that JEA members have given in support of these two important legislative efforts. Particular thanks go to Mike Hiestand and the Student Press Law Center, Angela Thomas and J-Ideas, and coverage given to the issue from the SPJ and the Poynter Institute. We hope to pass these press bills in the Northwest and to provide impetus for similar legislation in other states.

For more information about Washington HB 1307, visit: http://apps.leg.wa.gov/billinfo/summary.aspx?bill=1307

For more information about Oregon HB 3279, visit: http://landru.leg.state.or.us/07reg/measures/hb3200.dir/hb3279.intro.html

Happenings: Summer workshops that welcome advisers from out-of-state will be held in both Oregon and Washington. See www.oregonjea.org and www.wjea.net for more information.
Awards and Honors

Among the many great publications from NW Region 1, the following publications have been recognized with a major national award from NSPA or CSPA, in some cases from both! The Iniwa, WaWa, Tenas Coma, Crossings, JagWire, The Peninsula Outlook, The Garfield Messenger, Element (i), The Sound, The Academy Times, The Apple Leaf. Congratulations to the Northwest students and advisers from these publications!

Alaska Gretchen Wehmhoff
Membership: Our membership continues to stay low. The best membership builder has been the ASNE support. I am hoping a “sponsorship” drive plan in the making might help. It would sponsor at least 15 new members across the state, should the sponsors (local press) be willing. The idea is to have local media companies adopt student publications and projects. If it works, I’ll share it on JEATALK.

Our yearbook market in Alaska has become suddenly flexible. It is almost like a new “goldrush” as national companies are all attempting to break into the market up here this year.

Happenings: Rural Alaska students have been using computer technology to create podcasts and online video reports of state sporting events held in far away cities. Travel to Anchorage for state final events is expensive and most classmates and family members can’t attend. Most recently, the Bering Strait School District had student crews in Anchorage broadcasting the Alaska 1A and 2A basketball tournament.

Former Juneau-Douglas student Joseph Frederick, through personal challenges to school officials, has student free speech back with the U.S. Supreme Court. The final straw for the administration was the now widely known banner made Alaska style, with duct tape, reading “Bong hits for Jesus.” This act triggered a series of events that had Frederick’s family filing suit. The suit with the Juneau Police Dept. was settled. The District Court sided with the school district. Frederick appealed and the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals supported Frederick’s case that his punishment for exercising rights to free speech had been unjust. The Juneau Douglas School District appealed the case to the U.S. Supreme Court where the case was heard March 19.
Awards

We are grateful to the Alaska Womens’ Press Club’s continued support through their student press competition. Every year they continue to invite students from around the state to engage in the critiqued competition.

Idaho Carol MacPhee

To visit the new IJAA Web site, go to www.idahojaa.com

To encourage racial and ethnic diversity in scholastic journalism, several scholarships sponsored by Jostens of Idaho have been established for minority students to attend the IJAA State convention. The scholarships are registration fee waivers so students may attend most events and instructional sessions at no charge. Any multicultural journalism student in Idaho is eligible to apply. Scholarships will be awarded on a first come, first served basis. Financial need is considered. The number of scholarships awarded per school may be limited to give representation to additional schools.

Montana Linda Ballew
Membership: Montana has had an increasing interest in membership because of the strong showing of the Montana Journalism Education Association at the state teachers’ convention in Billings, MT in October.

Happenings: Judie Woodhouse indicated that MEA-MFT will again welcome our journalism group’s participation in the 2007 Educators’ Conference Oct. 18-19, 2007, in Belgrade, MT. We will be allowed to join other curricular groups at the convention and will be supported by MEA-MFT during this startup period for our group. Once again, award winning, veteran advisers, journalism professors and yearbook publishers will present sessions on a variety of topics including photography layout, writing, advising and publishing. Look for specifics in the state convention booklet that will be sent to every school and teacher in the state.

MJEA needs you and your ideas. If you wish to make a presentation, please go online: http://www.mea-mft.org and scroll down to “Other information.” Select: MEA-MFT Educator’s Conference, and at the login you need to establish an account. All presenters must file online. You will find the Montana Journalism Education Association (MJEA) in the curricular groups. Please enter that as the Primary group. You may start your application one day and come back to it another to finish, should you need.

Deadline for presentation application: May 4.

If you would like more information or have questions, please e-mail MJEA president, Judie Woodhouse: jwoodhouse@polson.k12.mt.us or call 406.883.6350, ext. 217.Convention co-chair: Cathy Conaway: cathy_conoway@laurel.k12.mt.us

MJEA goals:

• In 2007 add yearbook to annual competition; offer students scholarship; continue to build organization; work with University of Montana Journalism School to continue Newspaper competition; build membership
• In 2007–08 continue presence at Educators’ Conference with variety of workshops to offer state’s publication advisers; add Newspaper and Yearbook Adviser of Year recognition.
• In 2008–09 conduct a fall state workshop for advisers.

Awards: Great Falls High School Iniwa editor Josh Barone has been awarded JEA’s Montana Journalist of the Year, and he will receive a $1,000 scholarship. Both Barone and Jennifer Tiskus from Polson High School in Polson, Mont., will also travel to Washington D.C as the Montana representatives to the Freedom Forum.

The Montana Newspaper Association in conjunction with members of the Montana Journalism Educators’ Association will sponsor the MJEA Newspaper Contest selecting winners in 16 categories from news writing and photography to layout and Web site design.

The newspaper student journalist chosen as MJEA's High School Journalist of the Year will receive a $1,000 scholarship from the Montana Newspaper Association to the college of his or her choice and will be a guest at the MNA's annual awards banquet June 10 at the Holiday Inn Parkside in Missoula. Last year's winner: Roman Stubbs of Great Falls High School in Great Falls.

Advisers and their staffs are eligible for the Student Free Press Award competition, which honors a student newspaper's effort to battle censorship or educate its readers about press freedom. University of Montana journalism professor, Sherri Venema will coordinate the newspaper judging.

Montana will have its first Yearbook Student of the Year. A $1,000 scholarship will be graciously sponsored by Gary Lundgren, Senior Program Manager/Education, Jostens; Taylor Publishing, Yearbook Marketing Manager, Mike Taylor; Walsworth Publishing, Anne Scott, Montana representative and Howard Dusek, Regional Manager; and Heriff Jones, Logan Waetje, Montana representative and Doug Williams, Regional Manager. Great Falls High School media adviser and journalism instructor, Linda Ballew will coordinate the yearbook judging.

Oregon Nancy Guiliani
Membership:With large adviser turnovers, membership is an ongoing problem. However, as the result of the annual Fall Press Days, membership numbers increased.
Happenings

The biggest news is that HB 3279 regarding freedom of the high school press has been formally introduced to the state legislature. Supporters are working to get the bill out of committee. Working in our favor is a lobbyist who used to work with student journalists.

Some 1,100 high school students (more than expected) and advisers from Oregon and Southern Washington attended the 20th annual Oregon State University Fall Press Day. A new approach of including college recruiters from around the state was very successful. We hope to expand on that next year. Modifications were suggested for the registration form to include a pot for a voluntary donation to the Student Press Law Center and a spot in which the adviser could approve including his/her contact information on the OJEA Web site.

The new OJEA Web site is up and running. The board has reviewed the site and made suggestions that included adding links to online publications, more journalism resources, links to state college journalism programs, links to minority journalism opportunities and a job bank.

Current OJEA president, J.D. McIntire is taking over the position of summer workshop director. Plans are underway for the event in July at Oregon State University.
Awards

OJEA's annual Publications Olympics is underway with results to be announced in April. At this time over 50 schools have submitted entries.

Finalists for Oregon's high school Journalists of the Year are as follows: First Place--Tiffany Fegel, Sandy High School, Sandy, Oregon; tied for second are Michel Grinich, McMinnville High School, McMinnville, Oregon; and Katie Litvin, Sunset High School, Beaverton, Oregon.

Although Rookie of the Year and Adviser of the Year have been selected, these people have not been informed as yet. Later this spring OJEA president J.D. McIntire will make the formal presentation.

Washington Kathy Schrier

Washington State has been a hotbed of activity since our last report, with a Student Press Rights bill making its way through our state legislative system. Much of our energy has gone into educating the public about this bill, and to win over reluctant lawmakers and even more reluctant administrators. HB 1307 passed the House March 13 by a vote of 58-37. The bill was heard by the Senate Judiciary Committee March 27.

Perhaps due to the increased profile of our organization and many stories in the press, our state conference and write-offs on March 10 had the largest turnout in several years, with nearly 400 students attending. Actual membership in WJEA is slightly down, however, from last year, holding steady at 123.

We are working hard to promote our summer workshops for advisers and students, with a huge mailing to all schools in the state slated for early April. We hope that our workshop Expert in Residence, Bradley Wilson, will be an added draw this summer. With student press rights at the forefront of our minds this year, our summer workshop theme will be "Writes and Responsibility."

WJEA is proud to have a number of members who contribute time and energy at the national level as well as at the state level: Fern Valentine, Vince DeMiero, Logan Aimone, Robin Morris, and of course, Steve Matson.

Wyoming Mandy Kolata
Membership: Wyoming has maintained membership with 47 schools.

Happenings:Forty schools attended the 2006 Wyoming State Convention in October. The keynote speaker was the 2005 Dow Jones Journalism Teacher of the Year, Linda Ballew, who explained the benefits of journalism and how it helps in all areas of life.

There were several changes made in state representatives for the board this year. Mike Riley retired his position as Executive Director as did former president Aaron Dalton. Mandy Kolata took over as E.D. and Bev Fast is currently president. Several new district representatives were voted on as well.

Board members met last April to discuss making changes to the Wyoming handbook, which had not been updated since 2002. Several revisions were made, especially on the scoring rubrics used for judging newspaper and yearbook at the State competition level. Board members plan to meet again before May to verify speakers and finalize convention plans for 2007.
Awards and Honors

Tessa Workman of Cody High School received the Journalist of the Year scholarship for $500 and Katie Hampleman of Campbell County High School received $500 for the Friend of Journalism scholarship funded by Jimmie Joe Johnson and Walsworth Publishing Company. Special recognition was also given to eleven advisers who have been members for five or more years.
For the Board

Several Wyoming schools are excited about attending the national convention in Denver. We look forward to seeing everyone there!

SOUTHWEST REGION 2 Director Albert Martinez

Arizona State Director Carmen Wendt, CJE

Membership: The third annual adviser-only Jump Start workshop was held in three locations in the Valley in September. Attendees exchanged ideas, received handouts and training, and earned professional development hours.

The state had a successful fall convention at Arizona State University in November. John Cutsinger was the keynote speaker. A fall and a spring student contest included/includes entries from newspapers, yearbooks, literary magazines, photography, and broadcast. Judging is done by the professional media. Our state newspaper association, ANA, continues it invite students and their advisers to their two-day training workshops which is taught by a national expert in Photoshop, InDesign, or a similar software. Students are charged a minimal fee to attend.

The summer workshop will be in Flagstaff, Ariz., on the campus of Northern Arizona University, July 18-22. Workshop sections are newspaper, yearbook, InDesign, PhotoShop, and broadcast. Plus advisers can earn college credit. For more information visit www.arizonaipa.org or email aipaworkshop@yahoo.com.

Happenings: The Arizona State University Walter Cronkite School of Journalism will be moving to a new facility in downtown Phoenix.

Awards & Honors: AIPA will continue to recognize those who have played an important role Arizona's scholastic journalism, recognizing them in the AIPA Hall of Fame.

REGION 3 Director Bob Bair, MJE

The Region 3 breakdown for voting members, as of March 20, is: Illinois, 97; Iowa, 42; Nebraska, 37; Wisconsin, 37; Minnesota, 25; South Dakota, 4; and North Dakota, 3. Thanks to all for working to boost your state's JEA memberships.

Congratulations are in order to Region 3 individuals for various honors they have received. John J. Gonczy, Mount Carmel High School (Chicago, Ill.) and_Stacy Haynes-Moore, CJE, Jefferson High School (Cedar Rapids, Iowa) will receive JEA's Rising Star Award at the Hyatt Regency Denver on Saturday, April 14.

Davenport (Iowa) Central High School was the 2006 recipient of JEA's Cornerstone Award and Diversity Award. Deb Buttleman Malcolm is the adviser.

Recipients of the Medal of Merit are Deb Malcolm Buttleman, Davenport (Iowa) Central High School, and Susan Baird, Bellevue (Nebr.) East High School

Lifetime Achievement Awards were presented to Diana Peckham; Pekin (Ill.) Community High School, and_Shei ?la Pedersen, Millard North (Omaha, Nebr.) High School.

Rod Howe, Omaha Westside High School, was presented NSPA's Pioneer Award at the Nashville convention.

Illinois Randy Swikle, MJE

Membership: Our current JEA membership tally in Illinois is 109, including 97 voting members. According to JEA headquarters, Illinois ranks as fifth highest JEA membership (behind California, Texas, Kansas and Virginia) in the nation. Our IJEA state organization has a membership of 125. We continue to work toward higher state and national membership by employing various strategies to inspire publication advisers and journalism teachers to see the benefits of membership. For example, the fall issue of our state newsletter is sent to both members and non-members in schools throughout the state to reflect that important benefit. Also, we are working with area student press associations to encourage advisers to join JEA. A new Web site for the IJEA, produced with the help of the Illinois Press Foundation, adds awareness of IJEA activities and benefits.

Happenings: We continue promoting our annual All-State Journalism Team to recognize 10 student journalists who have had profound influence on the staffs of their school media. The honorees receive plaques at an All-State Journalism Team luncheon in the state capital in May. The event is hosted by the Illinois Press Foundation, a strong supporter of scholastic journalism.

Again the IJEA coordinates the Illinois High School Association journalism competition in the spring. Regional competition will be held at various colleges in the state. The final state competition will be held at Eastern Illinois University in Charleston.

Partnership with the Illinois Press Foundation continues to thrive as the IPF offers its resources and influence to assist with scholastic journalism projects.

The Illinois First Amendment Center now has First Amendment curriculum for grades K-12. Illinois educators worked with the IFAC to design age-appropriate curriculum for each grade level. The material is free and available on the internet, on CDs and in some cases in printed formats.

The McCormick Tribune Freedom Museum at Tribune Tower in Chicago had its grand opening. It features interactive exhibits with special focus on the First Amendment. If you visit Chicago, you won't want to miss this state-of-the-art museum. Check it out at its Web site at www.FreedomMuseum.

Awards and Honors:

• Kristina Hauptmann of Stevenson High School in Lincolnshire was named the 2007 IJEA Student Journalist of the Year. Her adviser is Barbara Thill.
• IJEA Vice President John Gonczy of Mt. Carmel High School won the JEA Rising Star Award, which will be presented at the JEA/NSPA Denver Convention on April 14. Karen Barrett from Wheeling High School received a 2006 Rising Star Award.
• Nancy Smith from Lafayette (Wildwood, Mo.) High School, formerly of Belleville West in Illinois. Received a Special Recognition Adviser Award from the Dow Jones Newspaper Fund.
• Tom Winski from Lindsey Wilson (Columbia, Ky.) College, formerly of Monmouth High School, received a Medal of Merit from JEA.
• Diana Peckham, retired from Pekin Community High School, received a Lifetime Achievement Award from JEA
• Deb Malcolm from Davenport Central (Iowa) High School, IJEA director, received a Medal of Merit from JEA.

For the JEA Board: The JEA board continues to make a profound difference in coordinating the efforts of journalism teachers and student publication advisers to build our profession and to enhance the quality of scholastic journalism. The services that JEA provides touch us all. We appreciate your hard work and excellent performance.

Iowa Gary Lindsay, MJE

Membership: Membership in Iowa continues to be strong. Our membership initiatives seem to paying off:

• 21 JEA members have paid their dues through combined membership with IHSPA, a record number.
• 42 Iowa JEA memberships were enrolled in the January report and several recent memberships should bring our total past that of last year's 46.
• Our direct billing approach to IHSPA membership has resulted in increased membership and earlier payment of dues.
• 56 schools in Iowa are currently IHSPA members.

Happenings: IHSPA Hall of Fame: At our fall state and regional conferences, IHSPA inducted 14 legendary journalism educators into its hall of fame. Our previous inductees include many whose names and accomplishments are well known in JEA: Mary Peterson Arnold, Merle Dieleman, Jack Dvorak, Richard P. Johns, Jack Kennedy, David Stedwell and Rod Vahl. This year's inductees continued the outstanding service of the previous class: Ben Van Zante, Ann Visser, Jim Treadway, Don Haines, Vanessa Shelton, Steven Lyle, Donna Manfull, Deb Buttleman Malcolm, Mary F. Pettit, Ron Smhra, F. Neil Puhl, Donald F. Haley, Fr. Paul Weis, Judith Funk, and Judy Ecker. The IHSPA Web site has a brief summary of the accomplishments of the new inductees. http://www.uiowa.edu/~ihspa/news/index.html

Winter Thaw: The third annual IHSPA Winter Thaw this past February emphasized media convergence. The program was organized by advisers in the Des Moines area, a group effort headed by Leslie Shipp. Linda Putney and a local TV anchor were guest speakers. Despite some challenging driving conditions, 20 advisers made their way to Des Moines for the weekend event. Grandview College graciously hosted the opening reception Friday night, and they had several staff members present including the college president Kent Henning, spouse of JEA member Carole Henning.

Awards and Honors:

• Stratton Award for scholastic journalism supporters: Iowa representatives of Jostens Yearbook Company, Iowa representatives of Walsworth Yearbook Company and Iowa representatives of Herff Jones Yearbook Company.
• Rod Vahl Teacher of the Year: Gary Lindsay, Cedar Rapids, Kennedy High School.
• Three principals were honored for their support of journalism in their schools: Bernard Stephenson, principal of Ft. Madison High School, Tim Wernentin, principal of Davenport Central High School, Vicky Poole, principal of Valley High School, West Des Moines.
• Student Journalist of the year from Iowa was Briana Byrd of Davenport Central High School, Deb Buttleman Malcolm, adviser; runner-up was Taylor O'Neil of West Branch High School, Dave Morris, Adviser, and third place went to Erin Roman, of Cedar Rapids Jefferson High School, Stacy Haynes-Moore, adviser.
• Richard P. Johns was awarded JEA's Teacher Inspiration Award at last spring's convention.
• Adviser Stacy Haynes-Moore will be awarded JEA's Rising Star award at this convention.

Minnesota Laurie Hansen, CJE

Awards and Honors:

• Minnesota's JOY was Sarah Schewe from The Blake School in Minneapolis. Second Place was Ian Yue from the Zephyr newspaper at Edina.
• Awards are on the NSPA Web site when you click on MHSPA. The contests sponsored at this event are Best of Show by MHSPA, All-State Awards by Journalism Educators of Minnesota and the Gold Medallion Awards, also by MHSPA.

Happenings:

• Several MN advisers participated as instructors in NSPA summer camp, including Laurie Hansen, Stillwater Area High School, Liz Keeling, Champlin Park High School, and Ellen Austin, St. Paul Academy.
• More than 500 students and advisers attended the 2006 MHSPA State High School Journalism Convention Oct. 3, 2006 at the University of Minnesota. Keynote speaker was Bobby Hawthorne.
• The Day at the Guthrie event went on as usual, but was held earlier. We saw A Christmas Carol on December 7, and students had a spectacular behind-the-scenes tour of the new Guthrie Theater in Minneapolis. After the tour, the students heard tips on reviewing from a Star Tribune editor and writer. Students saw a matinee of A Christmas Carol, and had two days to file a story for the contest. The winning article was then published in the Star Tribune.
• The Minnesota Wild Contest went on as usual in February. Students attend a daytime practice and had an opportunity to hear from Wild officials and to interview a player. A 1st place news-feature story is chosen for publication in the Wild brochure and first and second place photography portfolios are also chosen.
• JEM and Lynda McDonnell of the 360 journalism program out of St. Thomas University sponsored an adviser's workshop at the Star Tribune in Minneapolis in October. Advisers could bring one or two editors to the workshop and both the editors of the Star Tribune and The St. Paul Pioneer Press were on hand to answer questions and to talk about the future direction of print newspapers. Other topics covered that day were editorial leadership, coaching writing and covering controversy. A tour of the newsroom was also included.
• Last fall at the JEM meeting, several advisers were interested in an outreach workshop of some kind. An adviser from the Brainerd area volunteered to be a test site for a spring or early summer workshop. It's been a JEM goal to take our dog and pony show on the road to get more outreach to advisers in other parts of the state. This is still in the planning stages. Likely participants in this endeavor are me, Tim Dorway (principal at Rochester High School and former publications adviser), Liz Keeling and Ellen Austin.

Nebraska Marsha Kalkowski, MJE

Membership: Steady.

Happenings: Sponsored a winter JEA contest with volunteer JEA judges, mostly from the Board, and results are posted at: http://marian.creighton.edu/~nhspa/jeaneb/contest07.html There were 620 entries from 22 different schools. Assisted the Nebraska High School Press Association with the Fall Convention at the University of Nebraska in Lincoln. Had representation in Nashville and plan to have even more in Denver.

Awards and Honors: Five excellent portfolios were judged for Student Journalist of the Year. Congratulations to Omaha Central's Bob Al-Greene for being named the Nebraska SJOY and to Hillary Winter from Papillion-LaVista South for being named the runner up. We are also quite proud of our JEA Medal of Merit Winner, Susan Baird, who will accepting her award in Denver and our Lifetime Achievement Winner, Sheila Pedersen, who accepted her award in Nashville. Nebraska is also proud to call the new JEA vice president one of our own: Congrats to Bob Bair.

North Dakota Toni Nelson

Membership: Membership in North Dakota continues to be weak with only three or four memberships. We are currently working on rebuilding our state high school press association, so that has been a hindrance in membership numbers at the state and national level.

Happenings: Northern Interscholastic Press Association: At our April 2006 conference, Samantha Offerdahl of Bismarck Century was named Journalist of the Year, Sue Skalicky from Bismarck Century and Toni Nelson from West Fargo won Newspaper Adviser of the Year, and Meghan Brown from West Fargo won Yearbook Adviser of the Year.

Awards and Honors:

• West Fargo won 4th Best of Show for Special Edition at JEA/NSPA in San Francisco.
• Alison Kelly from West Fargo won NSPA's News Picture of the Year, first place.
• Melissa Gienger from West Fargo won CSPA's First Person Experience, second place.
• Carolyn Deutsch from Bismarck Century won second place feature story at JEA/NSPA in Nashville
• Hannah Johnson from Bismarck Century won second place news story at JEA/NSPA in Nashville

South Dakota Debra Rothenberger, MJE

Membership: The state director presented information about JEA membership and the national conventions at the South Dakota High School Press Association's adviser's luncheon during the fall convention and also at the summer Publications Institute.

Happenings:

• The South Dakota High School Press Convention was Sept. 25, at South Dakota State University in Brookings. Over one hundred more high school newspaper and yearbook students and advisers attended compared to the 2005 attendance. Before the presentations, students competed in the on-the-spot contests for yearbook, feature writing, news writing and photography. Bobby Hawthorne, author of The Radical Write, conducted three sessions: Have you ever written a powerful lead?, Not another teen Feature! and Editorial writing. Freelance photojournalist Doug Dreyer presented The art of photojournalism: A unique way of taking an artistic approach in creating images to tell a story.
• At the adviser's luncheon, South Dakota High School Press director Doris Giago presented the Founders Award. The members voted to have the Journalism Advisory Committee chairperson be in charge of the adviser's meeting at the state convention, too. The advisers agreed that having the convention on a day when school was in session did increase the attendance, rather than having the convention on Columbus Day in October.
• After the adviser's meeting was the general session. Giago recognized the All-State journalists, photographers and desktop publishers from the SDHSP Publications Institute in June. Then the advisory committee presented the awards for All-State and on-the-spot contests.
• The South Dakota High School Press Association had its Spring Writing Contest March 1. Results will be announced in April.
• The South Dakota High School Press Association will also be conducting its 2007 Summer Institute in June at South Dakota State University. The yearbook session and the desktop publishing session for yearbook are June 10-14, and the newspaper session and the desktop publishing session are June 17-21. The photography session is offered both weeks. Advisers may earn graduate credit. For more information, contact Doris Giago, the director.

SOUTH CENTRAL REGION 4 Wayna Polk

Arkansas Stephanie Emerson. CJE

Membership: ASPA continues to work to increase membership. We continue to encourage our members to enroll in JEA when they join the state organization. Several JEA members continue to be active at the national level. There are 105 members in our state AJAA organization; 81 of those are in JEA. We have 165 different publication members in ASPA.

Happenings: The State Convention was held in Hot Springs in April 2006 at the Hot Springs Convention Center with Embassy Suites as the convention hotel. In attendance were 124 publication members/schools, and a record 900 students. On-site contests were held: 10 in newspaper; 9 in yearbook; 5 in literary magazine; 6 in photography; 10 in broadcast. We averaged about 30 entries in each category. Twenty workshops were held in different areas for students and advisers to attend. 1200 awards were presented.

The Arkansas Scholastic Press Association is housed on the campus of Pulaski Tech in North Little Rock under the direction of Allen Loibner, CJE of Pulaski Tech. Our organization has a new Web site: www.arkansasscholasticpress.org Several links are there for additional information.

The 2007 annual state convention will be held in April 19-20, in Little Rock at the Arkansas State Convention Center with the Peabody Hotel serving as the convention hotel.

Last year was our first year to hold our organization’s Camp ASPA. It has become an annual event. It will again be held on the campus of Pulaski Tech in North Little Rock, June 25-27. See our Web site for more information.

Kansas Susan Massy

Membership: Membership in both the Kansas Scholastic Press Association (174 member schools) and JEA (121 voting members) remains strong and steady as we continue to encourage journalism teachers by offering “dual-enrollment” options in our membership pamphlet. Kansas JEA members are still active on the national level primarily through participation in national conventions, contests and critiques.

Happenings

• KSPA sponsored its annual Fall Conference at three sites across the state: Hays, Manhattan and Lawrence. More than 1,700 students from 113 schools across the state attended.
• The Regional Contest held at the six sites across the state allowed students to compete in all areas of journalistic endeavor. Winners in each of the 20 contests advance to the state contest. The Kansas State Contest is one of the few on-site competitions at the state level and will be held on the 1st Saturday in May.
• A middle school redesign workshop was held in February by Mary Crites.
• KSPA remains financially successful and is in the third phase of its endowment fund drive. The Kansas Scholastic Press Association Jackie Engel Endowment Fund has grown to nearly $37,000. Donations can be made through the Douglas County Community Foundation Web site.
• Through its Story of the Month competition, KSPA has recognized three students for excellence in one area of journalistic writing each month. The categories of writing that have been recognized since August have been editorial, feature, sports, news and column and review. The final category, which was due at the end of March, was design.

Awards & Honors: We couldn’t be more proud of the following people:

• Linda Drake of Chase County High School will receive the JEA Teacher Inspiration award at the Denver convention. She plans to take half of the monetary award and provide KSPA scholarships to non-journalism certified advisers who wish to take summer classes. The KSPA board will pick the recipients of the two $250 awards.
• Amanda Allison, a senior at Shawnee Mission East High School, was named the winner of the Kansas Journalist of the Year honor. Allison will receive a check for $1,000 at the KSPA state competition May 5 in Lawrence. Her adviser is Dow Tate. Hillary Mullin of Mill Valley High School in DeSoto was the second place winner and will receive a check for $500 and Ben Weiss of Shawnee Mission Northwest was the third place winner. He will receive a check for $250.

Texas Susan Duncan

Membership:Texas Association of Journalism Educators is fostering more interest among student journalists by creating a student advisory committee for the organization. The first group met at the October TAJE convention. Also new this year, TAJE is partnering with Association of Texas Photo Instructors (ATPI) to sponsor a nine-day retreat in Austria and Prague for journalism and photography teachers. Dates are Aug. 2- Aug. 11. Cost for the retreat is $2400. TAJE currently has 275 members; 197 Texas advisers are members of JEA.

Happenings:TAJE held its state convention in San Antonio, Oct. 14-16, with approximately 855 students and advisers attending. JEA president-elect Jack Kennedy gave the keynote address. Out-of-state speakers included David Knight and Scott Winter. Out of 701 entries, more than 320 students and publications won awards in on-site, carry-in, and best-of-show competitions. TAJE awards $5,500 in scholarships annually.

TAJE operates its own Web site and e-mail distribution list. The Web site features instructional materials including PowerPoint lessons that educators can download. The site is found at www.taje.org.

TAJE is proud to recognize the Texas Journalist of the Year from Duncanville High School. Sarah Tiambeng is a writer and editor for the newspaper Panther Prints. In addition, she has also worked on the yearbook staff and as a writer/editor for Class Magazine. She also writes for the Dallas Morning News with both front page and metro section stories to her credit.

ILPC is planning its spring convention at the University of Texas at Austin. In addition to providing academic contests for journalists in editorial, feature, news and headline writing in May, ILPC also hosts a two-day convention in April with more than 100 sessions. ILPC has 280 schools who are members of the organization.

Awards & Honors:At TAJE convention, the following were recognized for their outstanding work in school publications: Friends of Journalism: Lisa Schwartz of Taylor Publishing and Tread Sheffield of Josten’s Publishing. Trailblazer: Dianne Smith of Travis High School in Richmond and Pat Gathright of St. Mary’s Hall in San Antonio.

At ILPC, five Edith Fox King recipients will be recognized for their contributions to scholastic journalism. They include Sheryl Floyd from Pflugerville High School, Christine Davis from Trinity High School, Cindy Berry from Decautur High School, Laura Negri from Alief-Kerr High School and Cathy Hopkins with Taylor Publishing.

Missouri Gavin Brady, CJE

Journalism is alive and well in the Show Me State.

The Missouri Interscholastic Press Association has a Web site up and running. It is
http://www.missouri.edu/~umcjourmipa. Aaron Manfull from Francis Howell North is our webmaster.

Information about MIPA and Missouri Urban Journalism Workshop can also be found on the University of Missouri School of Journalism Web site: http://journalism.missouri.edu/about/connections

Journalism Day will be Thursday, April 25.

Our annual summer journalism camp, Summer Media Workshop (SMW) will be Sunday July 8 through Thursday, July 12. Information about SMW will be at http://muconf.missouri.edu/SMW

The Missouri Urban Journalism Workshop (formerly AHANA Journalism Workshop) will be Saturday, July 14th through Monday, July 23. The workshop is now open to ALL students regardless of background. Application deadline is April 19.

SOUTHEAST REGION 5 Brenda Gorsuch, MJE

The advisers and state directors of Region 5 would like to thank H.L. Hall and his convention committee for the outstanding job they did with the November 2006 convention in Nashville, Tenn. We believe their efforts showcased our region and the outstanding scholastic journalism produced in the Southeast while it promoted the Journalism Education Association.

Joe Dennis
Georgia State Director
This report focuses on the activities of the Georgia Scholastic Press Association (GSPA), which I serve as director in my role as director of diversity and high school outreach at the Grady College of Journalism and Mass Communication at the University of Georgia.

Membership
As of this writing, GSPA has 150 paid memberships. This includes 15 broadcast news programs, 18 literary magazines, 76 newspapers/newsmagazines, 40 yearbooks and one yearbook representative. This represents an increase of three members (2 percent) from the previous year.

Happenings
• GSPA held four, six-hour regional workshops in the fall. The workshops focused on writing, editing and design skills with guest speakers from local media outlets, college faculty and yearbook companies. More than 350 students and advisers attended the workshops, combined.
• GSPA held its inaugural advisers’ workshop in summer 2006, filling a huge void for adviser-specific training in the state. The 10-hour workshop was offered for point-of-learning credit through the Georgia Department of Education and held at the University of Georgia. Twenty-one teachers attended the workshop and sessions were taught by journalism faculty, yearbook representatives, the GSPA director and experienced advisers.
• GSPA held the Georgia Journalism Academy in summer 2006, a weeklong, residential journalism camp for high school students. Held at the University of Georgia, the Academy was attended by 63 students and offered courses in broadcasting, news writing, editorial writing, feature writing, photojournalism and graphic design. Journalism faculty and area media professionals taught the courses.
• GSPA just finished accepting entries for its 2006-07 Critique Service and General Excellence Competition. Awards will be distributed on April 27, 2007 at the GSPA Awards Ceremony, a luncheon banquet typically attended by 450 students and teachers. Here is the tally of entries:
-51 newspaper/newsmagazines
-31 yearbooks (2005-06)
-18 literary magazines (2005-06)

-8 broadcast news

-1,162 individual entries in 41 different categories (5 broadcast, 6 literary

magazine, 25 newspaper/newsmagazine and 5 yearbook)

JEA Involvement
• I attended the JEA/NSPA fall convention in Nashville, Tenn. I assisted activities by conducting one newspaper on-site critique, one yearbook on-site critique and judging editorial writing in the on-the-spot competition.
• We conducted the Georgia Champion Journalist Competition and received 10 entries. We forwarded the top entry to JEA for the National Journalist of the Year Competition.

South Carolina Karen Flowers, CJE
Membership: Because there are so many new advisers who do not have the time to learn or understand about all the services, contests, scholarships, etc. we offer at the state level, we are trying to set up a buddy system for the spring conference that will grow into a mentoring system for the summer and next year.
We think if new advisers had someone they felt comfortable asking questions of, they might be more willing to get more involved. On of our board members pointed out that veteran advisers are often intimidating even if when they try to be helpful and veteran advisers tend to gravitate toward each other at conferences and workshops.
So we are making every effort to make our more experienced advisers aware of these perceptions, whether they are true are not, and make our less experienced advisers aware of the resources they have through friendly e-mails.

Happenings: We tried to keep our network going between school years by continuing to offer an editors/adviser design workshop in July. We also added a board workshop the last of June to work on our copyright plagiarism policy (which will go into effect Aug. 1, 2007) and to realign our board. The spring SCSPA conference was April 25, 2006 and the fall conference was Sept. 25, 2006. We will have our spring awards conference April 30, 2007. We formed a committee to work on state journalism standards. They met and finalized the first draft in December. This draft contained all information for journalism standards in general. We will meet again to begin writing standards for Journalism I and each of the publications and productions.

Awards & Honors: Martha Herring, adviser of the newspaper at Carolina Forest High School in Myrtle Beach, S.C. was named the 2006 Reid H. Montgomery Adviser of the Year.
There were no entries for 2006 S.C. Journalist of the Year.
Zach Toman, Lancaster High School , editor in chief of the yearbook at Lancaster High School in Lancaster, S.C. received the 2006 SCSPA scholarship and Lauren Elizabeth Smith, Chapman High School , received a scholarship from the S.C. Press Association. Both students are attending the School of Journalism and Mass Communication at USC and majoring in print journalism.
Wade Spees, a photographer from the Post and Courier in Charleston, S.C. was awarded the 2006 Albert T. Scroggins Award which is given to a non-adviser who has made an outstanding contribution to the field of scholastic journalism and journalism education in general.

Publications receiving awards for their 2005-2006 publications were:

• Best Literary Magazine: Delphian, Christ Church Episcopal School, Greenville, S.C.
• Best Newspaper: Tribal Tribune, Wando High School , Mt. Pleasant, S.C.
• Best Yearbook: Excalibur, Stratford High School , Goose Creek, S.C.
• Best in Broadcast: Panther News, Carolina Forest High School, Myrtle Beach, S.C.
  

North Carolina Monica Hill, CJE
Membership: NCSMA continues to include JEA option on membership form.

Happenings:

• Fearing reduction in journalism coursework amid curricular changes, members of the N.C. Scholastic Media Advisers Association launched a letter-writing campaign to members of the State Board of Education. A newly approved framework for a core course of study threatened to push aside journalism coursework. The new core included an endorsement option, with no specific mention of communication courses. ROTC, arts and AP endorsement areas, however, were specifically mentioned. Regional meetings across the state followed the state board’s passage of the core framework. NCSMA representatives at these meetings were pleased to learn their letters had been read. The communications endorsement option was addressed as part of the regional meeting presentations.
• Regional workshops – NCSMA co-hosted regional workshops in the fall and spring semesters across the state. One exciting addition this year was a workshop in The Charlotte Observer building. Observer newsroom reporters and editors taught sessions in conference rooms, training rooms, lunchrooms and newsroom corners. This was yet another example of NCSMA outreach efforts to those who might not otherwise be able to attend more costly or far away events. Regional workshop fees are only $10 per person, including lunch.
• Summer Institute 2006 welcomed a large crowd of students and teachers across the state, topping our previous year’s total. Plans for Institute 2007 include moving production of The Rush, the workshop newspaper, to the offices of The Daily Tar Heel, UNC-Chapel Hill’s student newspaper. The Institute will add blogging and podcasting opportunities for student participants.
• The Journalism Teaching Fellows program continued to offer three free hours of graduate instruction to N.C. high school journalism teachers. Courses in summer 2006 were Teaching Broadcast Journalism in the Secondary School and Desktop Publishing and Design in the Secondary School.

Awards & Honors:

• Brenda Gorsuch, publications adviser and journalism teacher at West Henderson High in Hendersonville, N.C., was re-elected to the JEA Board, as regional representative for the Southeast.
• Robin Sawyer joined the Columbia Scholastic Press Advisers Association Board as vice president for membership.
• Westwind, the yearbook at West Henderson High, was nominated for the Crown and Pacemaker in the past year.
• N.C. High School Journalist of the Year for 2006, Dani Landskroener, was named alternate in the National High school Journalist of the Year competition. Natalie Scott of First Flight High was named the 2007 winner. Alternates are Susannah Brinkley of Northwest School of Arts and Amy Bryson of N.S. School of Science and Math.
• For the Board: Please consider slight change to the Journalist of the Year rubric: If the tie to community media were removed from the rubric and instead included as a bonus section, that would alleviate any unfair advantage for students in larger urban areas with more community media outlets. Some students live in rural areas not even served by a community newspaper. This bonus option might also allow for online media opportunities.

Alabama Susan Goins Newell, MJE

Alabama Scholastic Press Association (ASPA) is still in transition. Advisers are asked to continue to support ASPA, to please be patient and to help make the organization better.
“I began advising over 23 years ago. I owe the Alabama Scholastic Press Association. Almost everything I have learned about advising school newspapers and yearbooks comes from attending their events. I encourage advisers from Alabama to become active in their state (ASPA), regional (SIPA) and national organizations (JEA/NSPA & CSPA). In this way students can best be prepared for college and the world of work and your school can publish quality publications,” said Susan G. Newell, adviser of The Northridge Reporter and blueprints yearbook at Northridge High School, Tuscaloosa, Alabama.

There will not be a summer ASPA workshop in 2007. Check the ASPA Web site to find out information about a fall workshop or contact one of the persons listed in this report.
The University of Alabama will hold a Multicultural Journalism Workshop July 8-18 that is by application only. It will be a 10-day intensive workshop that covers print, broadcast and Web journalism. Information can be found at http://www.ccom.ua.edu:16080/mjw/workshop.html or at The University of Alabama Journalism Department Box 870172 Tuscaloosa, AL 35487-0172. The workshop is limited to 30 students. Early applications are past due, but sometimes students are accepted late if the workshop is not filled.

The program coordinator for ASPA is Amanda Al-Betar. She can be reached at (205) 348-9966. Katy Burnside, MJE, is still president of the advisor group for Alabama Scholastic Press Association. Her email address is kburnside@shelbyed.k12.al.us. Dr. Loy Singleton was named dean of The University of Alabama College of Communication and Information Sciences in 2006. He oversees the journalism department at the University of Alabama. ASPA has been discussing their future with the University of Alabama with Dr. Singleton.

Susan Newell is on the advisory board for the Southern Interscholastic Press Association (SIPA). Information about SIPA events can be found online at http://www.sc.edu/cmcis/so/sipa/ SIPA’s summer workshop is from June 13-17. Katy Burnside, who teaches English, journalism, newspaper and yearbook at Pelham High School, was named Adviser of the Year for Alabama. Burnside was nominated by her students.

Florida Anne G. Whitt, MJE

Awards
•JEA chose Florida Scholastic Press Association vice president and second-year teacher, Joe Humphrey, to receive its Rising Star Award.
•Adviser Deb Jepsen attended a week-long workshop at University of Iowa after receiving a Julie E. Dodd Scholarship. Steven Bloom led the study, Narrative Journalism: The Art of Telling a True Story.

Administrative changes
•Dr. Judy Robinson became executive director of FSPA when Jolene Pinder left office.
•Jane Robbins, retired Florida adviser, became coordinator of evaluative services.
•JEA is receiving bids for a host institution to begin July 8, 2008. Currently, the College of Journalism and Communication at University of Florida hosts.

Events
•Poynter Institute held a Writers Workshop for Florida high school students and teachers, Feb. 24.
•University of Florida will sponsor its annual Scholastic Journalism Institute, June 23-28. Contact person is William McKeen. wmckeen@jour.edu.
•Florida International University will host an Urban Journalism Workshop, July 15-27, on its Biscayne Bay Campus in North Miami. Contact person is Dr. Fred Blevens. blevens@fiu.edu.

MID-ATLANTIC AND GREAT LAKES REGION 6 Tom Gayda, CJE

Greetings from Region 6! Lots to report from the Great Lake/Mid-Atlantic area. It has been my pleasure to serve as Region 6 director for the last two years. I look forward to serving as a member of the JEA Press Rights Commission and continuing the good fight for our colleagues throughout the country. —Tom Gayda

West Virginia Ruby A. Dyer

Joshua Linton, a senior at Braxton County High School, has been named the state JEA High School Journalist of the Year. His advisr is Brenda Gibson.

Approximately 150 students and their advisers attended the annual United High School Media convention at Marshall University (Huntington, W.Va.) Feb. 16. Guest speaker was Jerry Mitchell, a special projects reporter for The Clarion-Ledger and author of The Preacher and the Klansman. In 1998 he and three other journalists were honored by the Anti-Defamation League for "their courage and conviction that the world must know of the brutality of hatred, injustice, and inhumanity." Workshops in newspaper, yearbook and broadcasting were offered and students once again participated in the Media Challenge. Winning the traveling Challenge trophy was Wayne High School. At the awards banquet, big winners were Wayne High School, Braxton County High School, Shady Spring High School, Parkersburg High School and Parkersburg South High School. Advisers and Corley Dennison, dean of the W. Page Pitt School of Journalism at Marshall University, met with media and college representatives to discuss how to attract more students and teachers to the field of journalism. An early summer meeting in Flatwoods, W.Va. is planned to further discuss the issue. Also, Cam Hale, newspaper and yearbook adviser at Huntington High School and at Huntington East until it consolidated with Huntington High, said she will retire at the end of the school year

Approximately 39 schools sent entries to the West Virginia University High School Journalism Competition but only about 15 schools had students chosen as finalists to compete at WVU March 15. Categories offered were magazine and newspaper design, sports writing, photojournalism, news writing, feature writing, editorial writing, critical review, advertising and broadcasting. After a day of on-the-spot competitions, students met at the Hotel Moorage March 16 to learn who had won first, second or third place. The school with the most awards was Bridgeport High School. Alice Rowe serves as the publications adviser there.

Michigan Brian Wilson

Membership: Last year I discussed some possible methods by which to increase membership, and membership itself has increased, so perhaps they’re working. For instance, the Michigan Interscholastic Press Association put a JEA notice on its membership form, to encourage advisers to join both. Certainly advisers who are members of both organizations have seen the benefits of becoming involved at both the state and national level. Based on somewhat unscientific data collection methods, Michigan membership in JEA has increased over the past few years. There are 78 current memberships in the state, among publications advisers, university programs, yearbook reps, and lifetime memberships. Several of the advisers listed on the “expired membership” list will definitely be renewing. Even without those, though, the total is up 12 from last year. The 2006 JEA directory listed 66 members from Michigan, which in turn was up from 57 in 2005, 59 in 2003, and 46 in 2001. Michigan seemed to be well-represented at last year’s fall conference in Nashville, and hopefully that momentum will continue.

Happenings: The new Michigan state graduation requirements have raised worries among many advisers across the state. An added emphasis on “the basics,” especially math and science, is a cause for concern for any elective-area teachers. The new requirements take effect with the current eighth-graders.

A group of Michigan advisers have become proactive as a result of concerns over new state curriculum changes. A series of standards committee meetings have been held over the course of the last few months. Teachers have split into two groups; one has been looking at how to match up the journalism curriculum to the state language arts benchmarks. The other has focused on how to align the curriculum with visual arts. Representatives from the state Department of Education have been available during these meetings to assist. Right now, rough drafts of each set of standards have been developed and the group is looking for input from members of MIPA.

And, of course, if advisers aren’t spending time worrying about when their jobs will be eliminated, they’re worrying about when their principals will decide they aren’t fit to do their jobs anyway. As we have seen across the country, evidence suggests that incidents of censorship are on the rise. Recently an adviser from Flint has been suspended following the airing of a music video as part of the video journalism production. The principal at Kearsley High School has been issued a memo from central administration telling him that he must now review any videos before they air. In what seems like a possible positive result of the situation, students interviewed on MLive.com have said that they want to move away from airing music videos and more into hard journalism coverage. “We just decided we’re going to focus on stories,” K-News Executive Producer Jordan Cunningham told MLive. “They (school administrators) haven’t asked to look at anything yet.”

Awards and Honors:Two Newspapers won 2006 Pacemakers: The Squall from Dexter High School and The Update from H.H. Dow High School. An impressive number of yearbooks, five, are finalists for Pacemakers:: Ceniad, East Lansing High School; Fentonian, Fenton High School; Ebb Tide, Carlson High School; Nexus, Inland Lakes High School and Ambassador, Stevenson High School.

Michigan also has several Crown Finalists:

• In magazine: Gallimaufry, Cranbrook Kingswood School.
• In newspaper: Central Stampede, Portage Central High School; InPrint, Fenton High School; The Squall, Dexter High School; The Update, H.H. Dow High School.
• In yearbook: Ceniad, East Lansing High School.

Virginia Fran Shearer

Our busy and dedicated journalism teachers and advisers have had a very busy year. Though our membership is down a bit, we continue to be an organization that attempts to meet the needs of the journalism students and teachers and advisers in Virginia.

On Aug. 3, 2006, we provided an InDesign Workshop for approximately 25 teachers and students. That workshop was held again on Feb. 17, 2007. Both workshops were at Harrisonburg High School with Valerie Penton, the state director of VAJTA, leading.

Our annual Fall Conference moved to northern Virginia this year. On Sept. 22, approximately 61 people attended the workshop at the USA Today building in McLean. Workshop leaders included Linda Putney, Jack Kennedy, Beth Fitts, and Mark Murray. Beck Sipos chaired the planning committee. The lunch speaker was Mark Goodman from the Student Press Law Center. We continue to donate to the center.

We had only two Journalist of the Year entrants this year which was certainly down from last year. Camilla Domonoske from Harrisonburg High School placed first, and her entry will be forwarded to JEA this week. Her adviser is Valerie Penton. Ayla Kremen from McLean High School placed second. Her adviser is Becky Sipos. She will receive a plaque and a check for $150.00. Domonoske will receive a plaque and a check for $300.

Though not completely planned, we think our fall workshop will be at Virginia Tech this fall. A summer camp for journalism students will be held at Virginia Tech in July. One of the instructors is Alan Weintraut, the Dow Jones Journalism Teacher of the Year.

Ohio Georgia Dunn

Points of Pride:Hannah Miller, Ohio’s 2006 JOY, received a $2,000 scholarship last spring as a runner-up to the national Journalist of the Year. We are proud of Hannah and all of the fine young journalists around the state.

This year’s JOY winner is Betsy Brown of Lakota East. Krista Ramsey, Cincinnati Enquirer education reporter and former English teacher, judged this year’s portfolios. She named Caitlyn Zachry also of Lakota East and Samantha Parker of Centerville High School as second and third place winners respectively. All three young ladies will receive scholarships for their schooling next year.

Initiatives across the state: Ohio has an extremely exciting initiative. The three major scholastic press associations across the state are preparing to merge into one new, statewide organization. Great Lakes Interscholastic Press Association at Bowling Green State University, the Journalism Association of Ohio Schools (based in central Ohio), and the Northeast Ohio Scholastic Press Association have been discussing this possibility for over a year.

The steering group selected Kent State University’s proposal to serve as the headquarters for the new group which will be a JEA affiliate. Kent has named Candace Perkins Bowen, former JEA president and scholastic media coordinator, at Kent as the executive director.

Over the next year, OSMA will be gearing up for its first event: a spring convention with contests, workshops, and awards. The fall of 2008 will begin the fall workshops at five regional sites which have not been selected.

Concerns: Ohio schools continue to struggle with budget problems. We are all hopeful that the rounds and rounds of budget cuts will not cut deeply into scholastic journalism, but the end to the funding problem seems quite distant. The number of censorship and prior review problems among the scholastic programs in the state is not diminishing. OSMA hopes to make a student press rights law one of its top priorities.

Indiana Nancy Hastings

Coming off a successful First Amendment Symposium, Indiana has faced a year full of ups and downs, with mostly positive news prevailing.

The Indiana High School Press Association hosted its first First Amendment Symposium at the State House in Indianapolis in early March to kick off interest for a student press law initiative. The three-hour program, which opened with a welcome from Gov. Mitch Daniels, was an effort to bring students, administrators and advisers together to discuss the importance of the First Amendment and a free student press. Speakers included the directors from the Chicago Tribune’s Freedom Museum and J-Ideas, a panel composed of students, an adviser and a superintendent discussing student press freedom, and four college students who were former high school student journalists reading their “This I believe” essays. Four current high school journalists were honored with their “I believe” state-winning essays representing the IHSPA’s core values of truth, integrity, courage and freedom.

Also in the “good News” category, Indiana is proud to recognize Connor Swarbrick from North Central High School as its Student Journalist of the Year. As editor of the Northern Lights newspaper, and Etchings in Thought magazine, Connor leads his staffs under the guidance of adviser Tom Gayda. Connor received a scholarship from the Indiana High School Press Association in recognition of this honor, as he plans to pursue a career in communication.

The year started on a positive note as students and advisers gathered at Franklin College in October for the Indiana High School Press Association State Convention. Highlights included recognizing Teresa White of Noblesville High School as the Ella Sengenberger Adviser of the Year, while Ryan Gunterman of Bloomington North High School was elected president

Indiana’s top student newspapers and yearbooks were also recognized with Hoosier Stars, while individual student winners were recognized with Harvey awards for newspaper, yearbook, broadcast and web journalism.

On the down side, Indiana is still waiting for its Journalism Standards to win approval from the Department of Education. Started more than three years ago because Indiana does not recognize “journalism” has part of its Core 40 course work, some schools were finding it difficult to justify journalism programs to school administrators.

The Standards have been written and have faced a series of hurdles. They have been approved by the state college journalism departments. but the hang-up is in the out-of-state think-tank approval. THE standards have been revised more than three times based on their recommendations. Once approved the Standards will recognize Journalism, Mass Media and Student Publications as Core 40 courses. These standards can be found on the IHSPA Web site: http://psj.franklincollege.edu/ihspa.

Kentucky Jackie Bretz

Efforts to boost interest in scholastic journalism are growing in Kentucky. I’m hoping that membership will blossom out of increased teacher professionalism and student interest in competitions and workshops beyond their hometowns.

The Kentucky High School Journalism Association spring conference April 18 and competition will attract more than 800 students from about 60 high schools. We continue to ask the state leadership to promote JEA membership and collaboration.

Regional universities are expanding the range and number of high school journalism opportunities. Western Kentucky University and the University of Kentucky hosted Dow Jones Minority High School Newspaper Workshops last summer. Western Kentucky University Kentucky High School Media Institute hosted two-and four-day High School Media Workshops last June which drew about 50 participants. Western’s School of Journalism & Broadcasting sponsored a fall Journalism Scholars Day which drew more than 400 participants. In conjunction with the Society for Professional Journalists, it also sponsored fall and spring high school newspaper, yearbook and broadcasting competitions as well as enVision, a four-day minority high school photo summer workshop.

Long-time adviser Denita Hines of Bowling Green High School and yearbook, newspaper and broadcasting adviser at Taylor County High School Troy Benningfield were named this year’s James Highland High School Media Adviser of the Year at Western Kentucky University.

Other state and regional universities sponsored various types of outreach, workshops and contests.

Our state membership is growing, albeit slowly.

NORTHWEST REGION 7 Report Ron Bonadonna

Nancy Olson from Vermont tells us that State Senator Jeanette White is slated to reintroduce a scholastic press freedoms bill this session. What that is, I do not know, but I will pursue very shortly. Brian Baron of Massachusetts is happy to announce that his JOY candidate is his own editor of The Lion's Roar, Ben Cotton. Good luck, Ben! And what has happened to Connecticut? Anyway, faithful Eileen Regen of New Hampshire wrote back apologetically that she had nothing to report but that she will keep trying to muster some memberships (she'll be in Denver). Sherri Taylor, as always, sent some really good stuff. Here it is: "We continue to offer JEA membership registration through the Empire State School Press Association, and stuff adviser packets with JEA information at the fall conference and summer workshop. Membership has stayed fairly steady.

We offered the annual fall conference for our state press association in late October and had more than 300 attendees from a wide geographic range. CSPA tends to draw students from the lower parts of the state, particularly NYC and Long Island. We still have several regional press associations serving the state. One is in Western New York and one in Long Island. I don't really have any contact with those associations.

The New York state journalist of the year is Rhonesha Byng from Edward R. Murrow High School in Brooklyn. We continue to get several teachers from NY accepted to the ASNE workshops each summer. Brocton High School won a Gallup award for its newspaper. Parallax, Ramaz Upper School, New York; and Philomel, The Nightingale-Bamford School, New York, NY both won magazine Gold Crowns from CSPA."

Sherri also responded to my request for something to be discussed in Denver. Here's what she said: "My state is needy. Few trained journalism teachers. High turnover. Little interest in getting involved or entering competitions. Many schools are happy to get publications out and don't really get overly concerned about the quality."

We have been busy doing neat things in New Jersey. Our fall Student Press Day at Rutgers University (football powerhouse and girls BB champs, we hope) was attended by over 1,000 students and advisers, highlighted by our keynote, Bobby Hawthorne. Worthy of note is that our candidate is the same as The Bernard Kilgore Memorial Scholarship winner as New Jersey Scholastic Press Journalist of the Year co-sponsored by the Garden State Scholastic Press Association and the New Jersey Press Foundation. The award is a handsome $5,000! This is also our first school year for a Unified GSSPA/JEA membership, which has helped both organizations. Finally, Susan Everett and I will be assisting in the Philadelphia Convention by gathering participants, including presenters and teachers needed for judging, critiques, etc. Pending President (running unopposed) Steve Chiger is also lending valuable assistance to the Outreach Academy and Multicultural Commission with his support, since Steve is also co-chair of the Neal Boyd Minority Student Journalists Academy. And through the assistance of yearbook reps in the state, I have been sending packets of JEA material out regularly for the past few weeks, and will continue the initiative through New England reps in the coming weeks. Philadelphia is the calling card.