Editors and staff members from The Brookhaven Courier visited NASA as part of a statewide competition, earning the most awards in the state.
By Diamond Victoria
Editor-in-Chief
The Extravehicular Mobility Unit, or EMU, used by U.S. astronauts is displayed in a glass case at NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston.
The Brookhaven Courier staff broke yet another record, winning 33 awards for previously published content and in live competitions at the 2016 Texas Community College Journalism Association convention.
Editors and staff members of The Courier competed against other journalism students from across the state at the TCCJA convention and competition in Houston and Kemah, Texas, Oct. 13-14. Live competition sites included NASA’s Johnson Space Center, the Kemah Boardwalk and the University of Houston – Clear Lake.
“I am very proud of the work our editors and staff have accomplished this past year,” Daniel Rodrigue, student publications adviser, said in a campuswide email.
TCCJA represents 18 member schools from across the state with journalism programs or student newspapers, including Kilgore, Tarrant County, North Lake, Eastfield and Richland colleges. Brookhaven took home the most awards of any college in the competition.
The live competitions included news writing for print, TV and radio; news and feature photography; editorial writing; and page layout and design. Competitions began with a press conference with members of NASA’s Mars Mission team followed by the opportunity to see artifacts of previous space missions.
“The news writing competition is always so difficult to pre- pare for because you never know what’s going to happen,” Nicholas Bostick, multimedia editor-at-large, said.
Editors won five awards in the live competitions. Diamond Victoria, editor-in-chief, won first place for editorial writing. Jacqueline Arredondo, layout edi- tor, took third place for newspa- per layout design. Noel DeJesus, senior staff photographer, and Eriana Ruiz, director of photography, took first place for news photo and second place for feature photo, respectively.
Jubenal Aguilar, managing editor, won second place for live news photo. “All of Daniel’s teachings helped me during the competition,” he said. “There were at least 20 other photographers who took the same photo that I won with, but it was the details that I learned to look for that helped me get the edge over others.”
Jubenal Aguilar, managing editor, won second place for live news photo. “All of Daniel’s teachings helped me during the competition,” he said. “There were at least 20 other photographers who took the same photo that I won with, but it was the details that I learned to look for that helped me get the edge over others.”
While visiting NASA, students, advisers and volunteers for TCCJA saw a Saturn V rocket, a lunar lander, three different suits used by astronauts and two robots planned to help with the Mars Mission.
“Visiting NASA was great,” Taylor Starnes, creative director for The Courier, said. “I got to see the robots that are planned to be used in the Mars Mission to collect geological data.”
The canned, or previously published content, competition included the same categories as the live contest, but with the addition of cartoon, sports feature writing, advertising and non-photographic illustration. The Courier also won second place in overall excellence for Vol. 4 of the literary magazine The Windmill.
The 2017 TCCJA will take place next fall in Arlington, Texas.
