AC mass media students capture 19 awards – 2 for overall excellence

AC students captured 19 awards at the event, including a pair of accolades for overall excellence and three first-place prizes, and Mike Haynes, former AC adviser/instructor, was inducted into the Distinguished Adviser Hall of Fame.

The AC contingent returned from Commerce with two particularly prestigious awards: Overall Excellence in Newspaper and Overall Excellence in Magazine.

AC students also garnered first-place awards for Magazine Cover Design by Claire Ekas; Editorial Writing by Keegan Ried; and News Photo by Kipper Sinclair.

In addition to a pair of second-place awards and a number of third places and honorable mentions, AC students participated a live contest requiring team multimedia coverage of a simulated news event. Jordan Gipson and Brianna Maestas won third in Video, and Salvador Gutierrez was third in Feature Photo.

“I am very proud of the teamwork the students demonstrated during this contest,” said Jill Gibson, student media adviser and mass media department chair.

It was during the convention’s awards ceremony that Haynes, a past president of the TCCJA, was formally inducted into its Distinguished Adviser Hall of Fame.

Haynes, who retired in 2016, taught journalism and advertising at AC for 25 years, serving throughout his tenure as adviser of The Ranger newspaper and AC Current magazine.

No stranger to professional accolades, Haynes joined the Panhandle Press Association Hall of Fame in 2009, and he was named Adviser of the Year for the Texas Intercollegiate Press Association in 2002.

In 2000, Haynes placed third in the Amy Writing Awards, a national competition for Christian writing. He has written a column in the Faith section of the Amarillo Globe-News for 21 years, and he has co-published the annual Panhandle-Plains Basketball magazine since 2011.

“I am overwhelmingly grateful for his role as my instructor, my adviser, my mentor and my friend,” said former AC student Amanda Castro-Crist, now a public relations professional at Texas Tech University.

Also at the TCCJA convention, second-place awards were won by AC’s Josh Ballard for Video News, and Jake Wagner-Russell for Newspaper Page Design.

Third-place awards went to Destiny Kranthoven for Non-Photographic Illustration; C. Ekas for Magazine Story Package; and K. Sinclair for Feature Photography.

Honorable Mentions were won by Kris Fredrick for Video Production; D. Kranthoven for Editorial Cartoon; J. Wagner-Russell for Non-Photographic Illustration; Carter Hall for Sports Feature Writing; D. Kranthoven for Magazine Cover Design; Stevi Breshears for News Writing; and Lauren Ebben for Feature Writing.

Students within the Matney Mass Media Program hope at least one more award comes their way this month.

For the third time in the past four years, an issue of AC’s student magazine, AC Current, has made the list of finalists for a National Magazine Pacemaker Award, referred to by many as the “Pulitzer Prize of student journalism.”

Pacemaker Awards are administered by the Associated Collegiate Press (ACP). This year’s winners will be announced Oct. 27 at the ACP National College Media Convention in Louisville, Ky.