Somerset Community College's student newspaper, The Bridge, brings home 17 awards from the Kentucky Press Association
The annual Kentucky Press Association's 2020 Excellence in Kentucky Newspapers contest winners were announced in February and SCC students were honored with 17 first, second, and third place finishes.
The Bridge, written and published by students at Somerset Community College, gained awards and praise at the 2020 Excellence in Kentucky Newspapers contest. As the only community college newspaper to participate in the contest for the past five years, The Bridge has accumulated a total of 71 awards in that time period in the Class 1 category of schools with under 10,000 students. Awards came for general excellence and for individual articles and series written by the students, led during the 2019-2020 academic year by managing editor Ray Hunter. Two faculty advisors assist with the publication as well, both of whom praised the accomplishment of their students.
SCC announced the news of the awards in a press release in March. The Bridge student staffers won three first-place, six second-place, and six third-place awards along with a certificate of merit in individual categories. The Bridge collectively won third place in General Excellence, making this the fifth consecutive year the paper has placed in the top three publications. Hunter walked away with six individual prizes, including a number one placement in the Best Columnist category, second place in both the Best Photo Essay and Breaking News Coverage categories.
Hunter shared a third place award with Christen Gibson in the Best Front Page category. The two also shared an award with fellow writers Noah Allen, Cheyanne Owens-Goodin, and Demareon Jones for a series of articles written about SCC's efforts to educate students during the pandemic. Gibson has now taken over the managing editor position for the 2020-2021 academic year and was awarded first place in the Best Enterprise Story for her COVID-19 coverage.
Jeff Harris and Stuart Simpson serve as faculty advisors for The Bridge and were impressed with the results from this year's contest, applauding the students for their hard work. As Simpson said, "We were blown away by this year's contest results. The students nearly doubled their total from last year. We did not expect that, but it's a testament to the staff's talent and hard work."
Harris noted, "Over the past couple of semesters, we've had some of the more 'team-oriented' staffs we’ve had in a long time – maybe ever. They've been big on sharing one another's load, on working together to get things done. So it's nice to see so many of their collaborative projects receiving recognition."
The Excellence in Kentucky Newspapers contest is judged by members of regional press associations and organized by the Kentucky Press Association, the country's tenth oldest state-level press association, according to the KPA website.