Journalism day, what most kids in Mrs. Kroeze’s Statesman, yearbook and journalism class known as J day, is a day spent going to SDSU to learn about how to improve your writing and your writing layout. We were taught different strategies like how to interview someone, how to take a good photograph and how to better lay out a spread.

Upon arrival, we were given a name tag with a different color dot on the corner of it. Depending on the color of the dot, we were after split into that group. Former SDSU graduates then came into the room and shared what their profession was.

The first session taught us how to conduct a good interview. We were taught to research our topics beforehand and then to use follow up questions to get more information. In the second session, we learned about how to use planned white space to lay out a spread and how to not make it too busy. In the last session we then learned about photography. Our instructor taught us to use proper lighting, understand the people in the photos and to photograph at the right angles.

After the sessions were over and lunch was eaten, we moved on to the awards part of the day. The Statesman took home first place prize with a superior award for our newspaper and got a score of 79 out of 90. The Heritage also got a first place prize with a superior award for our yearbook with a score of 72 out of 80. Other students that took home awards were Taylor Ericson in superior sports writing and excellent feature writing, Timothy Stolp in excellent general writing, Somer Luitjens in excellent sports writing, Cathleen Weng in superior editorial writing, Jenna Becker in superior editorial writing, Hannah Hansen in superior feature writing, Katie Osmundson in excellent general writing, Lucy Dekkenga in excellent sports writing, Lillian D in excellent general writing, Landon DeBoer in excellent feature writing and Gage Gramlick in superior editorial writing. Junior and Editor in Chief, Gage Gramlick, also won the Outstanding Service to South Dakota High School Journalism Award for his work on the New Voices Bill.