For the fall JEA/NSPA National High School Journalism Convention, nine students from FHC Publications accompanied by their adviser Mr. Matthew Schott traveled to Philadelphia, Pennsylvania on Nov. 7-9, leaving at 4 a.m. and stopping for a layover in Chicago before reaching their final destination. The Philadelphia Marriott Downtown hotel hosted the convention, welcoming approximately 3,600 students from around 400 schools.
The day of their arrival, they were taken on a tour of the city, stopping to see the Rocky statue. That night, JEA and NSPA hosted an opening ceremony, with keynote speakers and a pre-show presentation of break dancers, starting the convention off with a bang.
On the Friday and Saturday of the convention, each student went to classes of their choosing from 8 a.m. to 3 p.m. There were a variety of classes taught by both professionals and students, ranging from design to writing to photography to so much more. Taking an hour break each day, the students often went to lunch across the street at Reading Terminal Market, where there were many shops with different types of foods available for them to choose from.
While the group was able to split up for lunch, they joined together at the end of each night for dinner. As a special treat, publications funded a dinner at a high-end restaurant, Harper’s Garden. The students took this opportunity to dress nice and celebrate their hard work.
On the last night of the convention, awards were given out for excellent work submitted by each school’s advisor. To their complete surprise, as Schott did not tell them all the awards they were put up for, publications took home a total of ten awards from both current and former students. Senior Thomas Ramos, print assignments editor for the newsmagazine called Central Focus, joined the group with not only his surprise but also his satisfaction with the results of the awards night.
“I don’t think Schott told us about all the awards that we were put up for before we were actually there. So there was a lot of surprise. I know me and Birdie are really proud of Central Focus getting tenth in Best in Show, which felt really great, because this year has been really hard for us with how little staff we’ve got,” Ramos said. “So to have that like, award for our hard work was really gratifying. And also to see so many of my friends get individual awards … like Caroline having her photo award, and Hannah with her writing, and Birdie with that second best illustration that is so cool to me. It was just, it was really exciting. And everyone was super hype about it. It was just really nice to get recognized for all the hard work we do here, you know.”