In previous years, Wayne City Journalism has taken part in the Southern Illinois School Press Association (SISPA), Winter Conference. This event is a competition in which students from all over Southern Illinois and neighboring states compete by submitting journalism related content such as yearbook spreads, school news websites, and photos taken by the students. Enjoyed and annually looked forward to by many high school journalism students and teachers, the SISPA Winter Conference has developed quite the reputation among yearbook clubs and classes.  

Wayne City journalism classes will travel to Southern Illinois University’s campus in Carbondale in February to compete with photos and yearbook spreads in categories such as sports, academics, student life, clubs, sports copy, and online news features. The yearbook theme presented on the cover page, end sheets, opening and title page will also be submitted for a chance to win awards. In addition, the 2020-2021 yearbook will be entered to be judged for the Golden Dozen competition, where high school yearbooks of schools of similar sizes are compared. In the past, Wayne City has won the Golden Dozen three consecutive years and multiple other categories including theme and photography. Former journalism student and yearbook editor Jaden Boyd had a very good experience with SISPA. “I absolutely adored -attending SISPA and competing with my very own photos and spreads. Despite the intimidation I felt while taking part in an on-site photography competition, I ended up absorbing a lot of knowledge in the process and even won second place. Although I’m upset that my senior year SISPA experience was canceled due to COVID-19, I’m beyond happy that students this year get to attend,” stated Jaden. 

This year, the journalism class has had to face a great struggle while preparing content to submit for judging due to a shortage of staffing. Despite this, the team is pushing through. They have been working without ceasing just for this event. Each student is determined to present their absolute best and will not be satisfied with anything else. Addison Seidel, a junior and first year journalism student, stated, “These past two weeks have been a bit stressful while trying to get everything finished and perfected, but it has been fun to see projects come together. It also feels really nice to know that our work will be taken seriously, and we can be proud of the material we have created.”