In the third year of membership in the Utah Press Association, USU Eastern’s Eagle newspaper continued to add accolades to its “wall of fame” as the staff brought home two first-place awards, two second-place awards and four third-place awards at the annual winter convention in Salt Lake City.
The awards were won in the Better Newspaper Competition sponsored each year by UPA. The Eagle won first place for Best Website “The Eagle Online” found at eagle.ceu.edu. It was designed and maintained by former editor Les Bowen.Daylan Jones, Layton, won first place for designing the Best Sports Page. The Eagle received second place for Best Staff Produced R.O.P. Ad Campaign and Best Staff Produced Ad.
Third place was awarded to the Eagle staff for Best In-House Self Promotion, designed by former Eagle staff member Meagan Roach, Price. Next, third place was awarded to the Eagle in the Best Sports Photograph category, a basketball action shot taken by Tyson Chappell, Ph.D., assistant professor of biology. Sports layout staffer Megan Peterson, Kamas, received third place for Best Photo Page for a photo collage of fall activities. The Eagle’s only writing award was in the category of Best News Series. Eagle editor-in-chief, Karli Morris, Roosevelt, wrote a series of articles about how enrollment at Eastern will be affected by the missionary age change implemented by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
“The best part about winning any award in the UPA contest is that USU Eastern students compete against professionals in the journalism field. The Eagle has the smallest circulation of all the UPA member newspapers with 1,000 papers printed. Kudos to The Eagle staff,” adviser Susan Polster, Ph.D., said.
The newspaper was judged on issues from spring 2012 with KC Smurthwaite serving as editor; and fall 2012 with Morris as editor. The Eagle was judged in group one of the four newspaper categories that includes all weeklies. Group one includes newspapers up to 2,500 in circulation.
The college newspapers that are part of UPA include Utah Valley University, Brigham Young University, University of Utah, Weber State University, Utah State University and USU Eastern. The Eagle received more awards than any other college or university newspaper. The Utah Press Association was created in 1893 to represent Utah’s publishers. The organization is Utah’s oldest trade association.
The Eagle staff acknowledges and thanks Sun Advocate publisher, Richard Shaw, for sponsoring them in the UPA organization.