College Days honored in awards competition

College Days, Ripon College’s student newspaper, won 11 awards from the Wisconsin Newspaper Association in the 2017 WCMA Better Newspaper Contest Awards. The publication won an honorable mention in the category of General Excellence, the top award available, indicating that it is judged to be one of the best overall college papers in the state.

Current editor-in-chief Hannah Tetzlaff ’18 of Brandon, Wisconsin, layout editor Cordell Walker ’18 of Ripon, Wisconsin, attended the WNA Convention’s Honors Luncheon April 13 in Madison to accept the awards.

The contest period for the awards included issues published from September 2016 through August 2017, and thus represents work from both last year’s and this year’s College Days staffs.

“I’m proud of the effort put in by the student journalists of the College Days,” said Ian Stepleton ’98, adjunct instructor of journalism and advisor to College Days. “To earn 11 awards, after having garnered just two or three in each of the past few years, is evidence of hard work the writers, photographers and designers put in to the issues they create. With the changes the students have made over the last couple years, I believe this is just the first step toward many years of success. I hope the student journalists and others in the Ripon College family are just as proud as I am about the awards they earned.”

Members of the staff from last year also earned several honors:

• Khun Maung ’19 of Myanmar, first place in feature photography; second place in news photography; third place in news photography; and third place in sports photography.
• Hannah Tetzlaff ’18 of Brandon, Wisconsin, second place in In-Depth Story.
• Emily Janssen ’19 of Mayville, Wisconsin, second place in Arts and Entertainment Story.
• Becky Bajt ’19 of Mazon, Illinois, second place, in Sports Photography.
• Cordell Walker ’18 of Ripon, Wisconsin, third place in Page Design.
• Madeline VandenHouten ’17 of Ripon, Wisconsin, third place in Feature Story and honorable mention in Feature Story.