Ten young journalists and school newspaper adviser Mary Gillis from Rolla High School traveled to the National High School Journalism Convention in St. Louis Nov. 13-16. 
The convention, dual sponsored by the National Scholastic Press and Journalism Education Associations, offered students a variety of workshops and focus sessions to help high school journalists to improve their reporting, editing, and designing skills.
The school paper is also critiqued by professional journalists who offer suggestions to the staff.  Students competed in write-off competitions in various categories. 
Seniors Destinee Rea and Robin Femmer and junior Amy Licklider earned national awards in their respective contests.  Some 2,165 students from schools in 43 states and British Columbia competed in the contests.
The write-off competition was Friday. 
Licklider competed in the advertising design category.  She was given basic business information and had 60 minutes to compose an advertisement that would effectively meet the business’ needs. 
Her designs were judged against other competitors in the category based on visual appeal, neatness, and the effectiveness of the overall message.
Rea competed in the copy editing, headline and caption writing contest.  She took a multiple choice test on Associated Press style rules and then wrote headlines and captions for stories. 
The test was graded and the headlines and captions scored against other entries and the top awards were chosen.
Femmer won in the category of editorial cartooning.  She listened to a 30 minute presentation about the importance of seat belt laws. 
In response, she was given 70 minutes to compose her cartoon.  Femmer won a state award in this category last spring.
Junior Andy Giger competed in sports writing, junior Becky Smith competed in commentary writing, junior Matt Beasley competed in newspaper design, senior Kaitlyn Merrow competed in news writing, senior Nilam Patel competed in editorial writing, senior Chris Hamel competed in review writing, and senior Sam Pernicka competed in feature writing.
Students left Rolla High’s parking lot at 5:30 a.m. Thursday, Nov. 13 to attend full-day workshops taught by professionals in the field.  Licklider and Pernicka attended a photoshop workshop, Rea and Patel attended a leadership workshop, Smith and Hamel attending a writing session, and Beasley, Merrow, and Femmer participated in a Maestro team reporting session.
On Saturday morning students met in a round-table format with professional journalists, and then met with students from various schools across the nation to swap ideas, publications, and stories.
The last time that Rolla High’s journalists participated in the national convention was in fall 2001 in Boston.  Conferences are offered twice a year. 
This conference was possible because of St. Louis’ proximity to Rolla. Parents funded the trip for their students.
ECHO is a student-produced monthly 28-page newspaper that is delivered free to students and faculty of Rolla High School. 
The paper, which is funded primarily through advertising sales dollars, is distributed on the last school Friday of each month.   ECHO is housed in room 302 at Rolla High School and is supervised by teacher Mary Gillis. 
The paper can be viewed each month online at http://www.rolla.k12.mo.us/schools/rolla_high_school/staff_pages/communication_arts/mary_gillis/echo_newspaper/.