It is award season where outstanding television and film projects are recognized for their excellence.

It is also award season for journalists who are recognized for their reporting and photography via the Keystone Media Awards sponsored by the Pennsylvania NewsMedia Foundation.

The Student Keystone Media Awards were just recently announced with the Emmaus High School Stinger sweeping the awards in the high school category.

The contest “recognizes high school and college journalists that provides relevance, integrity and initiative in serving readers,” according to the PNA Foundation.

At Emmaus High School, Devon Helmer and Thomas Hartill took first place in the ongoing news coverage category; Ogonna Nnodimele, Devon Helmer and Maddie Hess took second place in ongoing news coverage; Devon Helmer, Thomas Hartill and Elliot Munson took honorable mention in the public service/enterprise package; Devon Helmer took first place for a feature story; Liza Duerholtz took honorable mention for a sports story; Ayaan Shah took first place in the editorial category; Joey Harinsky took second place for a column; Alice Adams, who is also a photographer for The Press, took first place for a photo story; Sadie Dallas took second place for layout and design; Huy Huynh took honorable mention for website; Sydnie Howard took first place for excellence in reporting on diversity - equity and inclusion and Ari Bowman, Lin Luo, Olivia Marler and Sophia DePhillips took second place in excellence in reporting on diversity - equity and inclusion.

The editorial staff at Northern Lehigh High School’s The Slate took second place in the editorial category; second place went to Chase Jones and Lacey Groover for cartoon/graphic illustration and Owen Levan-Uhler, Susan Gilsbach and Christopher Barnes took first place in layout and design.

Freedom High School’s FHS Press also earned awards. Megan Evans took first place for cartoon/graphic illustration and Christopher Denkovich took first place for feature photo.

At the four year colleges and university level with enrollment under 10,000, the staff of The Brown and White at Lehigh University swept Division II. They took first place in ongoing news coverage; second place for Aliza Lev for public service/enterprise package; honorable mention for Simona Shur for public service/enterprise package; first place for Isabella Cammissa for feature story; second place for Ali Kaplan for feature story; first place for Ella Holland for personality profile; honorable mention for Anna Piecuch for personality profile; honorable mention for Ruairi O’Gorman for a sports story; honorable mention for Frances Mack for cartoon/graphic illustration; second place for Mujuni Mirembe for feature photo; first place for the staff for website; first place for Ryan Braun for video story; honorable mention for Jun-Suh Titus Whang for video story; first place for Bonor Ayambem for podcast and second place for the staff for excellence in reporting on diversity - equity and inclusion.

Moravian University also took awards with Evan Yandrisovitz earning second place in the personality profile category and Anna Litofsky with second place in cartoon/graphic illustration.

Award winners at a two-year college include Northampton Community College with many awards. Chris Devlin won first place for editorial; Jesus Zaldivar won second place for editorial; Jesus Zaldivar won first place in the column category; Jesus Zaldivar won first place for review; Chris Devlin won first place for cartoon/graphic illustration and Chris Devlin won first place for podcast.

Congratulations to these student journalists for their commitment to journalism excellence.

On the professional level, all of our entries have been submitted for the very talented writers and photographers at Lehigh Valley Press who are in the community daily reporting on meetings, telling stories or capturing photos of special events. We wait while our submissions are being judged by our peers in another state. The names of the winners are expected to be announced in April.

Look at the talent we have in the Lehigh Valley!

In my mind, all of our writers and photographers are winners.

Debbie Galbraith

editor

East Penn Press

Salisbury Press