The award-winning Wildcat Chronicle has had a successful month. Staff members received awards from three different competitions.

Seniors Nayeli Lara, Kyle Paup, and junior Emily Wissemes all advanced to state for their performance at the journalism sectionals competition.

During the competition on April 29 at Eastern Illinois University, editor in chief Paup placed third in news writing and online production editor Lara placed sixth in review writing.

“I think what helped us out a lot, both in state and especially in sectionals, was just how the journalism program is run at our school,” Paup said. “I feel like there are plenty of schools who only run it as a club and write about whatever they want, but here we take it very seriously and I think that helps us a lot.”

Reporters competed at sectionals for the first time ever on April 23. Paup placed first in news writing and Lara placed second in sports writing and fourth in review writing. Wissemes placed third in editorial writing and junior Hector Cervantes placed fourth in headline writing. Cervantes is the editorial page editor.

Sophomore Catherine Miller placed sixth in feature writing. Miller is the paper’s lifestyles editor.

Overall the team placed seventh out of 12 competing schools. The five reporters were up against other schools with combined newspaper and yearbook staffs who were competing in multiple categories.

Points were determined based on the placement of the awards within all categories.

“The competition was interesting. It was cool to see so many student journalists from different schools in one place,” Miller said. “The competition was similar to what we do when we write for the Chronicle. I was given some brief background information and got to go through a press conference and then had to write a story from it.”

Students were given an hour and a half to write their pieces. The competitions had up to 12 people.

“To be honest, I was really scared. When we were walking into the competitors lounge, I saw all the people and got really nervous because they seemed so into journalism. When I went to go actually type my stuff up, that’s when it really sunk in,” Wissemes said, “Everyone else was finishing so quickly and I took an hour of the hour and a half provided. But I was so happy with the outcome.”

Along with placing at sectionals and state, the newspaper earned a gold rating for the website from the Northern Illinois Scholastic Press Association.

Lara earned blue ribbons for review writing and editorial writing. Paup received blue ribbons for individual in-depth, editorial writing and honorable mention for news writing. Miller was awarded with a blue ribbon for feature writing and sophomore Yamilex Rodelo earned a blue ribbon for photography.

“It makes me very proud to know that they can take what they learned in class and take it to a higher level. In JPro they’re very independent and they just keep on keeping on, doing what they have to do to improve and do the best that they can do,” adviser Laura Kuehn said.

Kuehn hopes that the success of the paper can continue in years to come.

“I’d like to be able to see the program grow and send more kids off to state. We just have a limited number of people now who can go because of the experience that they have. These are mostly people who have just started,” Kuehn said, “I’d like to be able to see that continue. Where the kids can come from journalism  and go to JPro and stay there for three or four years.”