Staff members from The Yellow Jacket newspaper traveled to Point Park University over spring break to accept nine Society of Professional Journalists Mark of Excellence awards. The awards were presented by the Society of Professional Journalists.

The Yellow Jacket is a part of Region Four, which covers four different states including western Pennsylvania, Ohio, West Virginia and Michigan.

Several staff members and one recent graduate were either finalists or winners of awards in several categories.

Executive Editor for the Yellow Jacket and junior journalism major Mattie Winowitch, who won an award for feature writing, said she is “pleased” with her staff’s work over the last year.

“It was absolutely a team effort,” said Winowitch. “Everybody worked together, from the people who come up with the story ideas to the people who take them during assignment’s meetings. Everybody was part of the process, and even though there are specific names on those certificates, I want everyone to be able to pat themselves on the back.”

The student staff members are not the only ones who won awards this year, however, for recent Waynesburg graduate and faculty advisor Jacob Meyer won awards in both the in-depth reporting and sports writing categories.

Meyer never set out to win awards but rather “to do the best he can with the story.”

“I think the awards are a testament of the hard work and dedication of the advisors, faculty, staff and students of the paper more so than us trying to go and win awards,” said Meyer.

Other award winners and finalists include Luke Goodling in Sports Writing and Feature Writing, Teghan Simonton in Feature Writing, Feature Photography and General News Reporting and Mitchell Kendra in Feature Photography.

For Luke Goodling, junior sports broadcasting/sports information major and sports editor of the Yellow Jacket, winning an award was not always in his realm of possibility.

“When I first started writing for the paper and I saw people winning SPJ awards, I was like ‘wow how do you get that good, there is no way that’s ever going to be me,’” said Goodling. “Honestly, it was never really on my radar until last year and that’s when I won my first one.”

Goodling has now won three awards and feels that working for the Yellow Jacket has prepared him for the challenges of the working world.

“What it’s really helped me prepare for is working on deadlines,” said Goodling. “Being able to manage multiple people at the same time, covering multiple things and being able to trouble shoot when it’s a Tuesday night and an article isn’t in and I have to fill the space.”

Similarly, senior journalism major, Mitch Kendra feels that working for the Yellow Jacket has prepared him for the real world.

“I’ve really improved my writing skills, but I’ve also taken up photography and improved it for what I can provide for the newspaper,” said Kendra.

Winowitch is in her first year as the executive editor and has proven to be up for the challenge as The Yellow Jacket has now won a record-breaking 17 awards between SPJ and the Pennsylvania News Media Association (PNA). The Yellow Jacket also has two new advisors in Jacob Meyer and Sarah Bell who also works at the university.

“I wasn’t sure what it would look like with new advisors and me as a brand-new leader,” said Winowitch. “It was really scary because I was like ‘can I do this, do I have the moxie to defeat this?’ But, I would not have been able to do it if I didn’t have such a firm foundation of advisors.”

The Yellow Jacket continues to publish weekly issues and wants to continue the streak of writing high quality stories.

“I just want to maintain our excellence,” said Winowitch. “I want us to continue striving to win more awards, working together to fulfill that dream, and I think we have it in us to raise our numbers next year.”