Kristen Tibbetts was a sophomore in Mr. Winter’s sixth-period photojournalism class two years and a week ago before the NSPA/JEA spring national high school journalism conference.

The Shield Online was up for its first ever Online Pacemaker Award, and Winter had asked everyone in the class if they would write a feature profile about Spanish teacher Juana Gun’s effort to throw a quinceañera for any student at the school who wanted one.

Winter said that the NSPA judges were looking at the website every day to decide whether or not the website should win the coveted Pacemaker Award, and he wanted them to see one last great story there before they made up their minds. If that wasn’t enough, he said, he would throw an ice cream party for the entire class if any student wrote a worthy story about the collective quinceañera.

Whether it was the ice cream or the potential of winning a Pacemaker, Tibbetts wouldn’t say, but she wrote the story, and The Shield went on to win its first over Online Pacemaker Award.

It’s two Aprils later, and Tibbetts is now co-editor-in-chief of The Shield, which today won its third straight Online Pacemaker Award. The Award was announced on a live Vimeo broadcast because this year’s spring national high school journalism conference, like everything else in the country, is on lockdown to stop the spread of the coronavirus.

But the virus could not take the shine off of today’s awards announcements. If anything the virus steeled the resolve of the NSPA to celebrate student journalism for persisting in creating great journalism in spite of and more to the point because of COVID-19. Before NSPA announced the awards for McCallum and the other winners, the video offered testimonials from well-regarded scholastic journalism teachers and professional journalists saluting high school journalists for continuing to put out articles and publications when they could just have easily let the lockdown shut them down.

McCallum was also recognized as a 2020 Yearbook Pacemaker Finalist during the video presentation. It was the first time that the McCallum yearbook has been a finalist, so it would have also been the school’s first Yearbook Pacemaker Award, but Winter told the small but spirited group of MacJournalists who assembled in a Zoom teleconference to watch the video together that it is really hard to win a Pacemaker and that being a finalist in the group of amazing schools that were finalists and winners is a victory.

“I didn’t really realize how difficult it is to win a Pacemaker because we’ve won them all three years that I’ve been a part of MacJournalism, but it feels really good to be recognized in a competition that spans across the nation,” Tibbetts said. “We work really hard to keep our online content updated regularly, especially recently now that we’re doing school remotely. Even though the Pacemaker is for the online site throughout the whole year, I really want to give a shout-out to everyone on staff who has been working just as much as, if not more than, usual to keep our website updated and fresh the past few weeks during quarantine. It’s really difficult to get work done while we’re stuck at home, so I’m just in awe of the staff.”

While Tibbetts is a two-year staff member who also contributed to the website as a sophomore photoj student, online editor-in-chief Max Rhodes is the only staff member who has been on staff for all three Online Pacemaker Awards. He not only has been an editor all three years, but his blog, “Rhodes Traveled,” has been an online exclusive of the site throughout the time of the Shield’s Pacemaker run.

“It seems like every year there’s the fear that we’re losing a lot of talent with the graduating seniors, yet the next year, the rising seniors and the new staffers are quick to step up and make the paper as good if not better than the year prior,” Rhodes said. “I feel like the paper is in good hands.”

In addition to the two Pacemaker announcements, NSPA also announced Best of Show winners. The Best of Show competition was different this spring because there was no show, no convention, to center the Best of Show awards around. As a result, NSPA opened the Best of Show competition up to any member staff that wanted to submit an entry.

McCallum submitted six entries, and four of them placed in the Best of Show competition. Issue four of the newspaper won second place in the Best of Show competition for tabloid newspapers 17 pages or larger. The 2019 Knight placed fourth in the Best of Show competition for yearbooks between 224 and 272 pages. The Shield Online placed fifth in the Best of Show competition for large high schools (1,500 students or more). Sophomore Lucy Marco placed sixth in the Best of Show competition for blogs.

Shield co-editor in chief Janssen Transier said he was very excited about the second place showing for issue 4 because of the struggle the staff had getting that issue out and because of how important he felt the issue was in the development of the publication.

“I’m super proud of it,” Transier said. “The issue stood out for me because there were a lot of heavy-hitting stories, like the nicotine regulation opinion story, the editorial regarding the “OK” hand symbol as well as Evelyn‘s sexual harassment story. I think it was important to the staff because it helped build confidence in our ability to create stories that didn’t just matter to us but also to our community.”

Yearbook editor in chief Mira MacLaurin said that is was a huge deal for the 2019 Knight to place fourth in Best of Show.

“Knowing that the hard work we spend so long on gets that level of recognition and appreciation in both specific and broad terms is incredibly gratifying,” MacLaurin said. “While the Pacemaker would have been a nice win, it’s impressive to even be a finalist for it. We know we are close, and this makes us all the more determined to make this year’s book the best.”

As he was with the Online Pacemaker Award, Rhodes was characteristically modest about the website’s fifth-place showing in Best of Show.

“I just post the stories online,” he said. “It’s really thanks to our awesome staff and adviser of course.”

Rhodes also had high praise for Marco.

“I’ll bet this is the first of many awards for Lucy’s blog,” he said.

Marco said the award meant a lot to her because the process of creating and sustaining her blog, “Lucy’s Laboratory,” hasn’t always been easy.

“I went into this project not knowing what to expect, and it turned out to be very difficult, forcing me to step far out of my comfort zone, into unknown territory,” Marco said. “Sometimes it felt like I was wasting my time and energy, only to produce something that no one would read. I never expected to get any sort of recognition or award. Writing this blog has pushed me to try new things. It’s really hard, but I’m glad I’ve started it, and I hope to continue. Hopefully, there’ll be a new one out in the near future, but it’s hard to get any writing material when everyone is stuck at home.”