The staff of the Pioneer Press won 16 Student Media Olympics awards for the 2020-21 school year. The SMOs are the yearly statewide high school journalism awards sponsored by the Oregon Journalism Education Association.
The qualifying period for awards went from April 1 of 2020 to May 1 of 2021. This enabled a few graduates to bring in high marks. Brisa Petravicius, a 2020 graduate, won Best in Category for a personal column, her final senior column published last June. Another 2020 graduate, Ivy Hartman, was awarded an Excellent rating in the same category for her final column.
Current Editor-in-Chief, senior Keianah Weakland, brought in the most awards this year. Weakland won four awards for her writing: an Excellent and an Honorable Mention in the Commentary (signed opinion) category and two Honorable Mentions in the Personality Profile category.
Other multiple winners were Assistant Editor, senior Emmily McKinzie, who won two Honorable Mentions (For Personal Column and Commentary) and junior Rebekah Harrell, who also won two Honorable Mentions (for General Feature and Commentary). Harrell will serve as Editor-in-Chief for the 2021-22 school year.
Other individual award winners were: junior Devin Yoder (Honorable Mention in Review Writing), senior Henry Nelson (Excellent in Sports Feature), senior Brooklyn Adams (Honorable Mention in Sports Feature), senior Emily Fendall-York (Honorable Mention in Sports Feature), and sophomore Brooke Womack (Excellent in Commentary).
The Pioneer Press 