Our seats were about 30 rows back from the podium. Late morning Orlando sunshine splashed in through the open double-doors in the rear of the hotel’s great convention hall. Anticipation tingled on our lips and in the tips of our fingers and toes.
The announcer spoke swiftly. It was the last day of the fall 2011 College Media Advisers/Associated Collegiate Press convention, and many of us had planes to catch.
Finally we heard it: “Second place for Best in Show: The Sentinel!”
We hooted and hollered as I jumped up to graciously accept the award. Staff member Jantzen Hunsaker, adviser Geoff Carr, former adviser Nils Rosdahl and I were all present that morning to cheer for NIC’s newspaper.
The Oct. 24 issue, which was a combination of a 3-D design and Harry Potter theme, placed our paper second in the nation for two-year non-daily broadsheet student publications at the Oct. 27-30 convention. This is quite a feat considering this semester’s staff is brand-spanking new, except for two returning contributors and the editors. Even all the editors are new to their jobs, and this is only Carr’s second semester with NIC.
So we can’t help but be proud.
The previous day of the convention included the National Pacemaker Award ceremony. The Pacemakers are prestigious honors given to school publications in recognition of general excellence in journalism. Many schools receive notifications of finalist status, but about a handful actually receive the award.
This was the Sentinel’s fourth consecutive Pacemaker, bringing the total to eight.
ACP/CMA host a joint conference in the fall. CMA hosts an annual spring convention in NYC, while ACP’s fall convention location varies each year. These conferences offer aspiring journalists and media students a plethora of sessions about everything from web design and page layout to feature writing and student leadership and much more.
When we’re not attending sessions, we have the opportunity to explore the city. Hunsaker took advantage of our hotel’s location and had a splash at Sea World.
“Everyone ‘otter’ go to Sea World,” Hunsaker said with a smile. He interacted with aquatic critters such as stingrays, dolphins and alligators.
Lifestyles editor Michael Paquin enjoyed visiting family. Paquin, Hunsaker, Lifestyles contributor Jake Wright Martin, photographer Gabe Green and I went on a day trip to see the oldest U.S. city, St. Augustine.
St. Augustine is about 104 driving miles from Orlando. We played the Alphabet Game as we drove for about two and a half hours while stuffed into Paquin’s dad’s awesome Nissan Maxima. We joked about pecans, alligators and going to Daytona Beach. Finally we arrived in historic downtown St. Augustine.
Our first stop was the oldest military fort in the U.S., Castillo de San Marcos. This 1672 fortress is a bastion-style structure that looks out on Matanzos River. The foundation and walls were actually made with shells and sand from the beaches, so as we wandered around looking at the artifacts and old cannon, we could see chunks of shells peeping out through the ancient gray mortar.
From the top of the fort, we could see across the river to our next stop, the St. Augustine Lighthouse.
The lighthouse, built in 1824, has been featured on “Ghost Hunters” a few times, and my fascination with the paranormal drew me to it.
After conning Green into going with me, we embarked on a two-hour “Dark of the Moon” tour. This included a $5 electro-magnetic field (EMF) detector rental and 120 minutes of excitement, a perfect adventure for Halloween weekend. We climbed the 219 steps in the tower and saw a breath-taking view of the city. I say breath-taking because I literally couldn’t breathe after climbing all those steps. We didn’t see a ghost, but we heard some spooky stories, learned some history and now I can check one more thing off my bucket list.
The day after our St. Augustine excursion, we had a group dinner in a restaurant in Orlando. Tu Tu Tango Café had a variety of foods on the menu, including “Thai Shrimp Lollipops” and “Alligator Jambalaya.” The atmosphere was lively and about halfway through our meal, a belly dancer took the floor. As she popped and jingled, a debonair man joined her and they danced the tango. It was a great show, especially when they invited us to dance with them.
After the meal, we took our traditional group photo and went our separate ways for the evening.
These trips to conventions in different cities are ideal for journalism students. We get to network and swap ideas with students and advisers from schools around the nation. Our work is put on display and critiqued so we may learn from our errors and take pride in what we do well. And we get a taste of another locale, which may someday be where we work or attend graduate school.
Our Orlando trip was an adventure in journalism and history. And taking second place in the nation was pretty cool, too.
