Winners will know if their work will enter the national contest in April.
Seven School of Communications students and one alumnus were named finalists across several categories of the Society of Professional Journalists Region 2 Mark of Excellence Awards competition.
Below is a list of the finalists:
- GENERAL NEWS REPORTING – Tommy Hamzik ’17 for “Stadium becomes shelter as community celebrates Elon junior”
- GENERAL NEWS REPORTING – Leena Dahal ’17 for “Reported bias incidents rise on campus”
- GENERAL COLUMN WRITING – Leena Dahal ’17 for “Take a stand against cultural appropriation,” “Learning beyond 5 little letters” and “Sharing the Phoenix spirit with Nepal during her recovery”
- IN-DEPTH REPORTING – Katy Canada ’15 and Mackenzie Roberts ’15 for “Unaccompanied minors seek new homes and lives in NC”
- SPORTS WRITING – Alex Simon ’17 for “Football attempts to move on to new ‘normalcy’”
- GENERAL NEWS PHOTOGRAPHY – Hali Tauxe-Stewart ’18 for “From Acorn to Disney World”
- PHOTO ILLUSTRATION – Stephanie Hays ’18 and Hali-Tauxe Stewart ’18 for “Up in Smoke”
- PHOTO ILLUSTRATION – Stephanie Hays ’18 for “Rankings, realities and varied experiences”
- PHOTOGRAPHY – Alumnus Al Drago ’15 is a finalist in five photography categories for work he did while he was still a student.
SPJ Region 2 Mark of Excellence Awards are given in newspaper, TV, radio and online categories. Awards are presented only to those who place in the top three in the region. Regional winners move on to the national competition, at which time they will compete with 11 other first-place regional winners.
Region 2 comprises North Carolina, Virginia, Maryland, Washington, D.C., and Delaware. Results of the Region 2 competition will be revealed at the regional conference awards luncheon Saturday, April 9 in Richmond, Va.
Last year, senior Michael Bodley and Al Drago ’15 were named national SPJ winners. Bodley won for Breaking News Reporting, and Drago won for Breaking News Photography, General News Photography and Feature Photography.