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The Shield Online
The Student News Site of McCallum High School

The Shield Online
The Student News Site of McCallum High School

The Shield Online
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Class of 2023 Shield stalwarts finish strong

Barnard, Boyle earn first-place awards; Shield earns top 3 finish in national contest for third straight year
July 29, 2023
Shield Class of 2023 standouts Kate Boyle and Evie Barnard swept the first-place awards in the commentary writing categories of the NSPA Clips & Clicks spring 2023 contest. Boyle won first in editorial writing for her April board editorial about gentrification in Austin. Barnard won first for her February opinion piece against the city’s proposed CODENext revision to land development restrictions.

Thanks to a strong showing in the spring-semester installment of the NSPA Clips & Clicks contest, the Shield finished third in association’s national individual entry contest.

The result marked the third straight year that McCallum journalism has placed in the top three schools of annual competition.

The competition judges award first place through fifth place (and also honorable mentions) for outstanding work in design, photojournalism and writing. When individual journalists win an award, they also earn sweepstakes points for their staff in the sweepstakes competition. A first-place award garners 10 sweepstakes points, and a second-place award nine points and so on. Fifth place earns six points, and honorable mention, five.

Class of 2023 graduates Evie Barnard and Kate Boyle led the spring-semester charge for the Shield, winning first-place awards (and the resulting 10 sweepstakes points) in opinion writing and editorial writing respectively. Barnard also earned a second-place award in newspaper front-page design for the illustration that comprised the cover for the Shield’s Austin issue in April.

In all the Shield won four awards in each of the three major newspaper competition categories: design, photojournalism and writing. Design winners included JoJo Barnard, Sophie Leung-Lieu, Alice Scott and Francie Wilhelm. Photojournalism winners included Naomi Di-Capua, Lillian Gray, Gergő Major and Camilla Vandegrift. In addition to Boyle and Barnard, writing winners included Lanie Sepehri and Ingrid Smith.

Earning 79 spring-semester points to bolster its 66 fall-semester points, the Shield staff finished with 145 points, finishing a mere 11 points behind the Harbinger staff from Shawnee Mission East in Prairie Village, Kan. The staff of CCNN Live from Miami’s Christopher Columbus High School ran away with first place, scoring 240 sweepstakes points to reclaim the first-place title it won in the inaugural NSPA Clips & Clicks contest in 2020-2021.

The Shield was the overall sweepstakes champion in 2021-2022.

All 12 of the Shield’s winning entries are below.

SHIELD winners in SPRING CLIPS & CLICKS

DESIGN (28 points)

Evie Barnard, “The Austin Issue,” newspaper/newsmagazine front pages, second place (nine points)

JoJo Barnard, “Let’s taco ’bout a news lunch spot,” newspaper/newsmagazine page/spread, third place (eight points)

Sophie Leung-Lieu, Alice Scott and Francie Wilhelm, “Plummer and Chen by the numbers,” informational graphic, fifth place (six points)

Alice Scott,  “What is your driving CO2 emissions?” newspaper/newsmagazine page/spread, honorable mention (five points)

PHOTOJOURNALISM (21 points)

Gergő Major, “Setting the stage,” feature photo, fifth place (six points)

SETTING THE STAGE: Senior Lauren Ryan-Holt (Leading Player) welcomes the audience in the show’s opening number, ‘Magic to Do.’  As a play within a play, Pippin has many layers to it, including the opening number which is performed as if the cast members were arriving at rehearsal and setting up for the top of the show. “It’s the cast’s musical bait to the audience,” Ryan-Holt said. “We’re luring them into the production we’re about to put on. We describe the journey and all the magical, fantastic things that will take place along the way. We literally set the stage for both the show and the audience’s expectations.” Ryan-Holt opens the number and leads the other ensemble members until the song turns into a fully choreographed number. However, for Ryan-Holt, the opening seductive chords are her favorite part. “There’s just something so mystical and enticing about how it sounds,” Ryan-Holt said. “It’s the one part where you can feel the full focus of the audience.”
Reporting by Alice Scott. Photo by Gergő Major.

Lillian Gray, “Wrestling team makes impact at Capital Classic,” sports photo, honorable mention (five points)

Freshman Noble Pierce wrestles her opponent from LASA during the Wrestling Tri Meet held in the McCallum gym on Dec. 7. Photo by Lillian Gray.

Camilla Vandegrift, “Good start, unfortunate finish,” sports photo, honorable mention (five points)

GOOD START, UNFORTUNATE FINISH: Despite their eventual 4-3 loss against Navarro on Friday March 3, the boys varsity soccer team started the game on a positive note, scoring just seconds into the game. Senior Liam Plum, who scored the team’s first goal, said the moment was a career highlight. “Scoring in the first 25 seconds of the game is one of my favorite memories of the team,” Plum said. “Although we lost, it was a competitive game and ending with a full senior squad was special.” Senior Eli Benitez said the opening goal put the Knights a step ahead; however, it also caused a confidence boost that may have caused them to let up later in the game. “We started the game great.” Benitez said. “It was nice to be up 1-0 in less than 30 seconds, but it made us believe that the rest of the game was going to be easy.” The Knights scored two more goals in the game, but the Vikings scored four times to earn a comeback win. “Our team needs to improve on playing at the same high intensity the whole match,” Benitez said. “Midfield slacked off a lot during the game, and it cost us; however, the forwards were able to connect a lot more passes, which is something we have been working on.” The team gained valuable experience and came away from the loss with specific areas to work on for the upcoming playoff season. The team’s first-round playoff game is this Thursday at House Park against Georgetown at 6 p.m. Caption by Chloe Lewcock. Photo by Camilla Vandegrift.

Naomi Di-Capua, “Fever pitch,” sports photo, honorable mention (five points)

Senior co-captain Sydney Suarez-Wallace battles a LASA opponent for possession during the second half of the Raptors 1-0 win over McCallum in District 24-5A play Saturday morning at House Park. After enjoying a hat trick the Saturday before against LBJ, Suarez-Wallace—like her Knight teammates—were unable to find the net against the Raptors despite creating numerous scoring opportunities in the game. (Naomi Di-Capua)

WRITING (30 points)

Kate Boyle, “Where did old Austin go?” editorial, first place (10 points)

Evie Barnard, “Hidden in Plain Sight,” opinion, first place (10 points)

Lanie Sepehri, “Through Reichman’s lens,” feature, honorable mention (five points)

Ingrid Smith, “Ice storm leaves students, teachers in the dark,” honorable mention (five points)

FINAL 2022-2023 NSPA CLIPS & CLICKS STAFF TOTALS

Total points (spring points)

240 (+121)

First
CCNN Live
Christopher Columbus High School
Miami

156 (+45)

Second
The Harbinger
Shawnee Mission East High School
Prairie Village, Kan.

145 (+79)

Third
The Shield
McCallum High School
Austin

123 (+83)

Fourth
Odyssey
Clarke Central High School
Athens, Ga.

105 (+48)

Fifth
Panorama
Ladue Horton Watkins High School
St. Louis

72 (+24)

Sixth
Veteran
Vandegrift High School
Austin

38 (+25)

Seventh
Eagle Nation News
Prosper High School
Prosper, Texas

37 (+13)

Eighth
The Communicator
Community High School
Ann Arbor, Mich.

35 (+8)

Ninth
Scot Scoop
Carlmont High School
Belmont, Calif.

33 (+14)

Tenth
The Octagon
Sacramento Country Day School
Sacramento

FALL 2022 NSPA CLIPS & CLICKS

119

First
CCNN Live
Christopher Columbus High School
Miami

110

Second
The Harbinger
Shawnee Mission East High School
Prairie Village, Kan.

66

Third
The Shield
McCallum High School
Austin

57

Fourth
Panorama
Ladue Horton Watkins High School
St. Louis

48

Fifth
Veteran
Vandegrift High School
Austin

40

Sixth
Odyssey
Clarke Central High School
Athens, Ga.

27

Seventh
Scot Scoop
Carlmont High School
Belmont, Calif.

26

Eighth
Eagle Edition
Episcopal School of Dallas
Dallas 

24

Ninth (tie)

The Communicator
Community High School
Ann Arbor, Mich.

The Dispatch
James Bowie High School
Austin

OneMaize Media
Maize Career Academy
Maize, Kan.

 

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