Celebrating success
Champion staff wins awards for various accomplishments
Achievement — From left to right: Joshua Gordon, Emily Brown, Jomer Bunque, Bre Black and David Van Dyk. Photo credit: Leah Seavers
In the midst of a busy semester, five of the Liberty Champion staff members received recognition for their achievements and publicized work.
Editor-in-chief Emily Brown recently received the David L. Adams Apple Award for Best Copy Editing at the College Media Association’s spring convention March 11-14.
Brown, a senior journalism major, has been involved with the Liberty Champion since her junior year, editing articles with AP errors and grammatical issues as a copy editor. During her senior year, Brown stepped up to the editor-in-chief position.
“It’s really cool to know that my hard work over the last couple years with the Champion has really made a difference,” Brown said. “… I love helping writers to get better, and I honestly love AP style. All my co-workers make fun of me and all the marks from my turquoise pen, but now I have something to show for it.”
Josh Gordon, the social media director for the newspaper, earned the title of vice president of member services on the national committee of the Public Relations Student Society of America (PRSSA) March 14.
This specific committee is composed of nine members that run for each office every year out of the more than 11,000 PRSSA members nationally.
“(It is) my proudest accomplishment to date,” Gordon said. “I was so incredibly happy and blessed because of the people who have poured into my life to get me to this moment.”
Noticed on a state level for her accomplishments, Bre Black, a senior graphic designer for the Liberty Champion, was awarded first and second place for infographic design by the Virginia Press Association (VPA).
Unbeknownst to Black, she was entered into the contest and was informed of her award during spring break. Black received the news of her award as a pick-me-up during the final weeks of her undergraduate career at Liberty.
“Sometimes you just get wrapped up in the semester and you are just tired,” Black said. “… Before spring break, I was just worn out creatively, spiritually and emotionally. So when (I was told I had won), it was kind of like a pat on the back, like you can keep going.”
Another Liberty Champion staffer, junior Jomer Bunque, was also acknowledged by VPA for the layout of the Liberty Champion Web page.
Though Bunque changed his major from web development to business management and information systems with a cognate in information assurance, he is still involved with the newspaper.
“Even though that’s not my major anymore, it’s kind of cool that (web is) not my concentration and I still put a lot of hard work into it, and it pays off,” Bunque said.
Bunque, the Liberty Champion’s web manager, will be accepting a third place award for Best Website in the VPA April 18 at a ceremony for the VPA in Roanoke, alongside Black.
David Van Dyk, news editor, was recently published by the Center for International Maritime Security (CIMSEC), a naval warfare nonprofit think tank. The report featured the Center for Strategic and International Studies’ seminar concerning the revised document “A Cooperative Strategy for 21st Century Seapower,” signed by the three Sea Services.
Van Dyk found the opportunity through a blogger who was asking for a journalist to cover the event. Van Dyk drove three and a half hours to Washington, D.C. March 13 to cover the event and was later published on CG Blog. He also sent the article to CIMSEC, which later published his work, titled “The Coast Guard’s Role in 21st Century Seapower.”
Van Dyk highlighted the fact that his experiences with the university newspaper provided him the tools to report on the event, and ultimately to have it published.
“What I learned at Liberty definitely prepared me for covering an event of this magnitude,” Van Dyk said. “Keeping a good flow throughout the article and knowing which facts to use and which facts to leave out are things I learned and practiced in class and with the Champion.”
While Van Dyk has been published in the Liberty Champion multiple times, he commented that it was nice to see his work in another publication.
Tiller is the feature editor.