The Quill and Scroll International Honor Society for High School Journalists announced today that the staff of The Shield is the sole winner of the 2018 Blue and Gold Award for Staff Excellence.

In the words of the organization: “The Blue and Gold Award for Staff Excellence honors high school newsrooms for overall excellence in product. It is the highest Blue and Gold Award a staff can receive.”

Quill and Scroll also awards Blue and Gold Awards in two more specific categories: Comprehensive Writing and Comprehensive Visuals. McCallum also won a Blue and Gold Award in each of these categories.

In order to win the Blue and Gold Award of Staff Excellence, a school must earn more points than any other school in the International Writing, Photography and Multimedia Contest. Points are awarded based on the individual awards won in the contest. A school receives five points if a student wins first place in a category. Quill and Scroll refers to these first-place winners as Sweepstakes Award winners.

A school receives three points for a second-place award, two for a third-place award and one for an honorable-mention award

McCallum earned more points in this year’s competition than any of the 125 schools who competed.

“In 25 years as a publications adviser, this is the best that any of my staffs have ever done in this competition,” adviser Dave Winter said. “Having my students’ work, both verbal and visual, recognized against such stiff competition makes me extremely proud to be their adviser. I couldn’t be happier for them individually or collectively for all of us at MacJournalism.”

The McCallum point total was helped by the school’s three National Sweepstakes Award winners. Madison Olsen earned two of those, one in sports photography and one with Emma Baumgardner in political writing. Co-editor in chief Julie Robertson also won a Sweepstakes Award in editorial writing.

Each Sweepstakes Award winner in the only first-place winner that the contest recognizes nationwide.

Roberton won her Sweepstakes Award for the editorial, “Letting students know their voices matter,” which appeared in the first print issue of the 2017-2018 school year. The unsigned staff editorial praised the McCallum and AISD administration for allowing students to peacefully protest by taking a knee during the National Anthem at sporting events and pep rallies.

”The piece is well researched with both physical and human sources,” the judges said. “It reaches a conclusion (without preaching) calling for action and providing a commendation.“

Olsen and Baumgardner won their sweepstakes award in political writing for their article on the 2018 Women’s March, “‘One year later… and we’re still here’”.

“This story goes off-campus but does a thorough job of reporting a news event of interest to a wide audience,” the judges said of the story. “A lot of voices on multiple sides of this issue are covered in the story, and each is handled with respect and authenticity. This story is professional publication-worthy.”

Olsen’s other Sweepstakes Award was in sports photography for her Oct. 30 photo “Point Taken,” which depicted 2017 volleyball players celebrating after scoring a point in their bidistrict playoff match against Kerrville Tivy in Wimberley.

“ This photo captures the moment perfectly,” the judges said. “Volleyball players are so expressive after every point. That makes the sport so fun to photograph. This point seems even more consequential than normal ones because of the emotions on the players’ faces. Congratulations to the photographer for not just sticking with the action of the individual plays, but watching what happens afterward.”

In addition to the Sweepstakes Award winners, McCallum also captured two second place awards, which earned the staff six more points.

Co-editor in chief Charlie Holden captured a second place award in the science, health and agriculture category and Sophie Ryland won second in the in-Depth reporting category.

McCallum’s honorable mention award winners included Zoe Hocker in news writing, Olivia Watts in photo slideshow, Max Rhodes in review column, Maddie Doran in sports page design, Bella Russo in sports photography, Ian Clennan in sports photography and Anna Compton both feature writing and opinion column.

“Having my stories mentioned as honorable winners in the Quill and Scroll Contest is really rewarding considering all the time and effort I put into them,” Compton said. “Along with my feature and opinion honorable mentions, I’m really proud of my peers for the recognition and titles they were awarded.”

2018 is only the third year that Quill and Scroll has administered the Blue and Gold Awards, which were established in 2016 to commemorate Quill and Scroll’s 90th anniversary. The two previous Blue and Gold Award for Staff excellence winners are Shawnee Mission East of Prairie Village, Kan., in 2017, and Westlake High School of Austin in 2016.

The McCallum yearbook staff has won a Blue and Gold Award in each of the past two years. In 2017, the yearbook staff won a Blue and Gold Award for Comprehensive Writing. In 2016, it won for Comprehensive Visuals.