The Centurion won 10 awards at this year’s Student Keystone Press Awards, bringing their total to 84 awards since 2010.
The paper, which is run entirely by students, will take home second place in the general news category for “Missing Woman’s Body Found” written by Shannon Harrar, when the winners are honored at the America East Media Business & Technology Conference on Wednesday, April 12.
The Centurion also received honorable mention in the general news category for “On Campus Protests Turn Violent,” written by Harrar and Hal Conte, that details an incident on campus last December in which a controversial protestor riled up students.
The paper also won second place for their ongoing news coverage of the 2016 election, by Centurion staff members Harrar, Conte, Nash Anderson, and Erin McVan.
In the public service & enterprise package category, the Centurion won first place for a package of stories called “Different Relationships in a Different Age,” written by Lauren Savana, Diamond Schuler, Angela Grabosky, Crystal Stout and George Means.
The paper won second place in the same category for “Racism and Prejudice in the Land of the Free,” written by Savana, Jahmeelah Wilson, Carly Pendergast, Chad Dingman, Stout and Schuler.
Means also received an honorable mention for his profile on local hip-hop artist Anthony Fiorelli.
Nash Anderson won honorable mention for “Golf Team Looks to Improve” in the sports category.
In the website category, the Centurion and its entire staff received first place.
The paper garnered an honorable mention in the Cartoon/Graphic Illustration category for the illustration “America through a Danish student’s eyes,” done by Karoline Lunddal Dam, a visiting student from Denmark.
And the paper won an honorable mention in the news photo category for a photo of protests on campus by Alexander Anderson.
The Centurion competed in division III of the Student Keystone Press Awards, which includes community colleges from around Pennsylvania. Competing schools include Community College of Allegheny County, Delaware County Community College, Montgomery County Community College, and HACC.
Winners will receive their awards at an awards luncheon on Wednesday, April 12 in Hershey. First place winners will receive plaques, while second place and honorable mention winners will receive certificates.
Tony Rogers, journalism professor and faculty adviser to the Centurion said, “I think it shows that even at a community college paper, where staff turnover is a constant, you can still produce really good journalism. The fact that the Centurion has won so many awards is a testament to the hard work and dedication of all the paper’s editors and reporters, year in and year out.”
Some areas of focus over the past year for the paper have been its coverage of the sports teams at Bucks as well as photography. “We are always trying to improve our coverage of the sports teams at Bucks, and I think we’ve done a pretty good job of that this year,” said Rogers. “Covering sports at the college can be difficult because many of the games are held at times when students have already left campus for outside jobs.”
“Photography is definitely an area we could improve upon, though,” Rogers added. “Although, with the advent of smartphones that take pretty good quality pictures, it’s made things a lot easier in that regard. I always emphasize to my students that when they are covering a story they have to think not just about words but about visuals, meaning that every story should have a photo or graphic to go with it.”
Rogers’ official job title is faculty adviser to the paper. “I’m not there to run the paper for the students, but to provide advice and guidance when needed,” said Rogers.
“If we have a sensitive story that needs to be handled in a certain way, I can be there to guide students on the right approach. But still in the end, students run the paper. They write and edit every article, write the headlines, do the layout, and that’s the way it should be,” Rogers added.
The Centurion is open and available to all Bucks students. If you are interested in pursuing a career in journalism or want to get involved, visit www.bucks.edu/journalism.