I am writing to the NDSU community because The Spectrum staff is too “Minnesota Nice” to publish a story about its amazing success during the 2016 Associated Collegiate Press Best of the Midwest College Journalism Convention in Minneapolis on January 29-31.

To be blunt, The Spectrum won awards—lots of awards—in multiple categories.

Under the leadership of Editor-in-Chief Erica Nitschke and Web/Managing Editor Linda Norland, The Spectrum won “Best of Show” (aka 1st place) in the Four-year Weekly Newspaper category; “Best of Show” for its website in the category of Large Schools; and 3rd place in the category of Special Edition.

Individual NDSU journalists also amazed the judges this year.

Graphic Designer Emily Beaman won both 2nd and 8th place in Single Page Design; Head News Editor Jack Dura brought home 9th place in News Story; Photographer Kim Hill took 2nd place in News Photo; Photo Editor Gabby Hartze won 7th place in News Photo; and Head Copy Editor Benjamin Norman and contributing writer Allison Pillar worked together to win 3rd place in Multimedia Package.

To see the stiff competition faced by these achievers, you can access the complete list of universities and winners at studentpress.org/acp/2016/01/31/2016-best-of-the-midwest-best-of-show-winners/

In this era of national Bison sports publicity, I encourage all of us at NDSU to recognize the effort and success of our non-athletes, too, beginning with the staff of The Spectrum. An email to http://ndsuspectrum.com/staff/ will show them that their tireless efforts have been noticed and appreciated. Go Journalists!

Mary Pull
Director, Undergraduate Center for Writers
Senior Lecturer, English Department