Avonews Artists Finish in Top Ten at Penn State for PSPA State Journalism Finals

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Junior Airah Shafiq finished tied for 3rd and senior Bree Brown placed 3rd outright at the state final competition for PA School Press’s Journalism competition on Wed, April 3rd at Penn State’s Main Campus. Both competed in artwork categories, a first for the Avonews since PSPA restarted the competition in 2014.

Competition focused on taking notes, asking questions, and using reporting from a press conference with Assistant Athletic Director Sarah Higgins in Alumni Hall at the student union.

This was the first year for PSPA using Alumni Hall, a shift within the HUB from the usual auditorium, which was not available for use.

Airah had 60 minutes to use her notes and craft an editorial cartoon based on Ms. Higgins’s comments and reflections about her experiences.

*After taking extensive notes, Airah’s entry detailed the scope of Penn State sports as well as the unity with sports Ms. Higbee emphasized.*

For Bree’s Literary Magazine – Artwork category, she used her own art materials to create an original artwork based on a provided poem, pictured below.

Alumni Leana Simmons, class of 2021, was one of a number of student panelists in the afternoon, speaking about her experiences at the school of communication before later catching up and comparing Avonworth experiences with Airah and Bree while entries were judged.

This year’s competitors marked the 9th time in 10 years an Avonews staff member had reached PSPA state finals.

Airah’s top state finish in editorial cartooning followed Catrina Raich in 2022 (pictured later in this article), Andrew MacDowell in 2020, and two- time competitor David Clark at the beginning of PSPA’s statewide finals at Penn State in 2014-2015.

Clark was one of two Avonews staff members to win a state championship in PSPA’s return to state championships in 2014, joining editor-in-chief Ryan Johnston, who won for editorial writing.

MacDowell, back row far right, would have joined a record number of Avonews regional winners at Penn State for the state competition scheduled for March 25th, 2020. Due to statewide COVID restrictions just weeks into the COVID-19 epidemic, the state competition was cancelled. Additional winners were as follows:
Kailey Scigliano – Newspaper Feature Writing (back row, 2nd from left)
Nathan Morgan – Newspaper Sports Story Writing (back row, next to MacDowell)
Hadley Holcomb – Editorial Writing (front row, 2nd left -also editor-in-chief in 2019-2020)
Will Lucas – Newspaper Photography (middle top row)

Brown was the first ever Avonews competitor at the state level for Literary Magazine – Artwork. She was also only the second competitor in the category in Avonews history, following Zoe Trexel in 2021 during the remote competitions.

Bree’s regional win did continue a three year streak of Avonews regional winners at Point Park in the overall Literary Magazine category: former co-editor in chief Laurel Purcell and current editor-in-chief Zion Shenck both won the Literary Magazine – Poetry categories in 2022 and 2023, attending the finals at Penn State as well.