Nebraska high school students earned three first places, six third places and three honorable mentions in the National Federation of Press Women High School Communications Contest. Winners were announced during a May 16 awards ceremony held via Zoom.

First-place entries in the Nebraska Press Women High School Communications Contest advanced to the national round of competition. The contest recognizes students in 23 categories representing a variety of areas including writing, photography, graphics, page layout, and yearbook.

Nebraska’s national winners are from five schools – Lexington High School in Lexington, Marian High School in Omaha, Millard South High School in Omaha, Ralston High School in Ralston, and Westside High School in Omaha.

First-place honorees are:

  • Cartooning – Elleiana Green, Marian High School, “Gerrymandering”
  • Double-truck Layout – Delaney Davis, Westside High School, “Lademi Davies: How One Student Manages a Complex Balancing Act”
  • Sports Photo – Zoe Gillespie, Westside High School, “Photo Gallery: Boys Varsity Basketball vs Millard North”

Third-place winners are:

  • Columns or Blogs Anna Rasgorshek, Marian High School, “Totally bANNAs: Not-so-dumb blondes; Mental health over medals”
  • Single-page Layout – Maddie Adam, Marian High School, “The Network Front Page Nov/Dec 2021”
  • Video Feature Story – Cameron White, Westside High School, “Walt and Benny | A Story of Two Unlikely Friends”
  • Yearbook Layout – Nina Kudlacz, Ralston High School, “Spring Play”
  • Yearbook Photo – Kyleigh Southepmany, Lexington High School, “Sideline Hype”
  • Yearbook Copywriting – Liah Haines, Lexington High School, “At Any Minute We Got This”

Honorable mention recipients are:

  • Editorial – Darian Pierre, Millard South High School, “FERPA amendment needed to better serve LGBT+ youth”
  • Review – Carli Ahsan, Marian High School, “’Selling Tampa’ encourages a false narrative for women of color”
  • Environment – Madeline Leland, Turner Wittstruck, Alexis Smith and Haley Johnson, Millard South High School, “Conscious Consumerism”

View a list of all NFPW winners  and links to the first-place winning entries on the National Federation of Press Women website.