[View ALL News Press Releases] The Street, Elizabethtown Community and Technical College's student newspaper, won 24 awards at the Kentucky Intercollegiate Press Association annual conference at Western Kentucky University February 28. Seven were first place in their categories. At the conference, managing editor Brandon Banks, Hodgenville, won first place in feature photos and in the deadline writing competition. First place honors were also won by Kristeena Lee Daniels, Hodgenville, and Aijalon Drake, Bardstown, in the analysis and special reports category for a story last September about high gas prices and how they affect student attendance. Last year's managing editor Janet Henderson, Louisville, placed first for a general interest parenting column about online predators. Brant Bond, Elizabethtown, also won first place for a sports headline and the paper's staff for a feature headline. Bond submitted "Red, white and bluegrass: U.S. wins Ryder Cup" for an article about the U.S. team win at Louisville's Valhalla course. He also wrote "Kentucky football: offense lacks offensive."

Banks took home five second-place awards for analysis and special reports, photo essay, feature photo, advertising design, and news headline. In the analysis and special reports division, he submitted an article about how college students eat unhealthily and one about how the clocks on campus are all set to different times. Sports columnist Carlton Gribbin, Elizabethtown, also won a second-place honor.

Banks won third place in the feature photo division, and writer Lauren Bednar, Flaherty, placed third in a copy editing competition at the conference last month. A staff editorial placed third as well. In addition, the newspaper staff placed third in the best special section, feature page layout and overall layout categories.

Banks received two honorable mentions for photography, Henderson for news and Amy Eaves, Bardstown, for sports feature writing.

Suzanne Darland, adviser for The Street, said this was the largest number of awards the paper had ever brought home from the conference. "We couldn't believe it," she said. "They just kept calling our name. At one point, Brandon couldn't sit back down at our table because he was going back up to accept another award." "I wasn't surprised," said Banks. "We had set our sights on the competition. I knew we had some strong entries."

The Street competes in Division B, which includes KCTCS schools as well as small private colleges like Asbury, Georgetown, Lindsey Wilson and Transylvania. Five students went to the two-day conference, attending workshops about photography, video journalism, feature writing, and getting a job in journalism when many newspapers are going bankrupt.

"Journalism is still a viable field," Darland said, "but it's not the same field it was 10 or 20 years ago. Students can't just expect to get a job at a print newspaper when they graduate. They need to be versatile. They'll write for the web, take photos and video, upload a podcast, and perhaps do a 30-second broadcast."

Darland, who recently began teaching journalism courses at ECTC after a hiatus, said that the school's program is well-populated. "Newspapers aren't completely going away. We still need them to do what newspapers have traditionally done: keep an eye on government to make sure elected leaders and public officials operate in the open, not in secrecy."

She said, however, that newspapers are getting thinner and thinner as more news content migrates to the web and to cell phones. She added that journalism majors can also seek jobs in public relations and marketing, two fields where jobs continue to grow. And she noted that the skills journalists learn: a commitment to accuracy and clear communication and the ability to organize complex information into a readable format are skills that are needed in many fields.