Lincoln Southwest (LSW) and Lincoln Southeast (LSE) High Schools were both awarded a Cornhusker Award by the Nebraska High School Press Association (NHSPA) on Monday, Oct. 21 at the Fall NHSPA Conference. Southwest was awarded the award for the 2023-2024 edition of their yearbook, The Talon, and Southeast was awarded the award for their newspaper, The Clarion.
The Cornhusker Award is the highest honor for high school journalism departments in the state of Nebraska. It’s awarded to schools that demonstrate journalistic excellence in all areas that involve their publications. These include coverage, writing, design and photography. There are Cornhusker awards for yearbooks, newspapers, and broadcasts in high schools around Nebraska.
“It was such an honor to win the Cornhusker,” Southwest yearbook Editor-in-Chief, senior Khloe Swanson said. “It felt like all of the long nights and countless hours paid off.”
The Talon’s yearbook staff had to overcome many challenges to create their yearbook. Some of these challenges include having a smaller staff, having a new editor, meeting deadlines and staying motivated.
“We had a very small staff last year and I was also the first junior at Southwest to be Editor-in-Chief of the yearbook. It was definitely a challenge as a young editor with a small staff to meet our deadlines and stay motivated when there was so much to do,” Swanson said. “It was a lot of hard work and dedication, but it was so worth it.”
In addition to Southwest’s yearbook winning a Cornhusker, Southeast’s newspaper, The Clarion, won a Cornhusker as well. Southeast started their print newspaper in the 2022-2023 school year. Similarly to Southwest, Southeast also had to work through many challenges to be able to get this award.
“It feels really good to win the Cornhusker Award. We were kind of down last year because it was just a struggle to start a newspaper and then see all of these amazing newspapers and not win,” Southeast Editor-in-Chief of the newspaper, senior Maren Stinke said. “But I feel like our work has been rewarded and I’m really proud of the journalism students that started last year. I think it will feel really good to be rewarded for their hard work.”
In total, 23 high schools won a Cornhusker Award, 15 schools won for their yearbook and 8 schools won for their newspaper.
