By the USU department of journalism and communication

Utah State University journalism students swept to 17 awards, including six firsts and domination in online journalism, in the annual regional Society of Professional Journalists Mark of Excellence Awards competition on Saturday.

The annual awards were presented during the Region 9 annual conference in Fort Collins. The Mark of Excellence contest recognizes the best of student journalism in print, broadcasting, photography and on the Internet. Region 9 includes colleges and universities in Utah, Colorado, New Mexico and Wyoming.

The USU students made strong showings in three categories, but dominated the region in the online areas. USU's student-produced online news site, "The Hard News Café," was named the best all-around independent online student publication, and USU student reporters won awards in all five online categories, sweeping two of them.

"We are very proud of our students' performance in the Mark of Excellence contest this year, especially in the new online categories," said department head Ted Pease. "Winning 12 awards and dominating all categories-including best in the region-certainly makes our online reporting students and the Hard News Café the ones to beat in future competitions."

Leading the Aggie journalists were junior Leon D'Souza and senior Will Bettmann, who coauthored three winning articles, including two firsts for stories on the post-9/11 anthrax scare and on Muslims at USU; D'Souza, a reporting intern at the Logan Herald-Journal, also won a first place in his own right in the online opinion and commentary for a series of articles on India and terrorism.

Other first-place award winners included Holli Gunnell in general online news reporting for her article on USU student gene research, Ruth Turner for an online feature story on delinquency, and graduate student Andy Morgan, who won first place in column writing.

In other awards, senior print journalism major Marcie Young won second place in online feature reporting and third in online in-depth reporting; graduate student Lizzy Scully won thirds in feature reporting and opinion writing; and senior Matt Flitton, now the Cache Valley reporter for the Ogden Standard-Examiner, won second place in online commentary.

The JCOM Department's A-TV News won third place in the region for best non-daily newscast, and broadcaster students Jeff Hertzler and Jennaca Tesch won thirds in sports photography and TV spot news reporting, respectively.

The Utah Statesman won second place for the best non-daily student newspaper in the region.

Society of Professional Journalists
Region 9
2002 Mark of Excellence Awards
Fort Collins, Colorado
April 5-6, 2002

Online Journalism

Broadcast Journalism

Television Non-Daily Broadcast
Third place: ATV News

Television Sports Photography
Third place: Jeff Hertzler, ATV News

Television Spot News
Third place: Jennaca Tesch, ATV News

Print Journalism

Print Column Writing
First place: Andy Morgan, "Goodbye Damien; Glad to be a man; Remember to love."

Best All-Around Non-Daily Student Newspaper
Second place: The Utah Statesman

For more details, contact the USU Journalism and Communication department at 435-797-3292. 

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