Emaline Mason

Murphy Foss

Nick Mannion

Staff Writers

Sports Editor

On Nov. 3, Jamesville-DeWitt High School students from  Rambunctious and RamPage earned 31 awards from the Empire State School Press Association for their artistic and journalistic talents. They received the awards for a wide array of pieces, from sculptures to articles, poems to webpage designs.

Members of both clubs as well as students from the Journalism class attended the ESSPA conference, held at the Newhouse School of Communications at Syracuse University. The ceremony was held after a collection of seminars that focused on improving students writing and media skills. ESSPA has been promoting the education and development of aspiring high school journalists since 1937. Co-founded by M. Lyle Spencer and Dr. Douglass W. Miller, the organization has been holding this event for 80 years and students from Jamesville-Dewitt have been attending for over two decades.

Both J-DHS’s Rampage and Rambunctious publications took home numerous awards (listed below). “This was our third year going [to the ESSPA conference],” said Rambunctious editor, junior Sophia Liaw, “we’ve grown a lot in terms of quality and amount of awards won.” The conferences have also been helpful in giving suggestions and advice to the publications who have attended. “It has helped us a lot,” said Liaw, “since last fall we’ve added a lot of elements that we learned from ESSPA.” adviser Matt Phillips was also pleased with the publication’s experience this year, “I thought [the event] went very well,” said Mr. Phillips, “we split up and got to go to lots of different workshops.” Rampage adviser Trinity Conner added that she was “very pleased” with the publications awards at ESSPA.

RamPage Awards:

• 1st place Gold, Best All-Round Publication, RamPage and RamFeed Staff

• 1st place Gold, Multimedia Video

• 1st place Gold, Editorial Writing, Spencer Schultz, (“Should J-D Rank Its Students”)

• 1st place Gold, Feature Writing, Tim Skeval and AJ Ortega, (“Battling E.B. with a Song.”)

• 1st place Gold, In-Depth Coverage, Spencer Schultz, (“Don’t Drink the Water”)

• 1st place Gold, News Story (Division B), Spencer Schultz, (“National Honor Society on the Rise”)

• 1st place Gold, Personality/Interview Story, Scottie O’Bryan, (“Buddy Buckets”)

• 2nd place Silver, In-Depth Coverage, Spencer Schultz, (“J-D Students Witness History at the Rio Olympics”)

• 3rd place Bronze,  In-Depth Coverage, Mia Potamianos, Jenna Vespi and Thomas Edson,  (“Senora DeJesus”)

• 3rd place Bronze,  Personality/Interview Story, Mariyana Van Arsdale,  (“A Musical Quack Attack”)

• 3rd place Bronze, Sports News, Thomas Edson, (“Girls Basketball Takes Another Class A Crown”)

• 3rd place Bronze, Sports Feature, Scottie O’Bryan, (“Buddy Buckets”)

• Honorable Mention, Feature Writing (Division B), Everett Moss and Evan Blust, (“New Faces in the Old Crowd”)

• Honorable Mention,  Front Page Design

Rambunctious Awards:

Gold:

• Literary Magazine / All New York — Rambunctious Winter 2017

• Literary Magazine / All New York — Rambunctious Spring 2017

• Best new publication — Rambunctious Online

• Online / All New York — Rambunctious Online

• Most Improved Publication — Rambunctious

• Haberle Conlon, “Before the Flood” (Poetry)

Silver:

• Rambunctious Staff, “Mama and I” (Layout)

• Sofia Liaw, “Sox: a play” (Specialized Content)

Bronze:

• Michale Schueler, “Stardust” (Poetry)

Honorable Mention

• Rambunctious Staff, “Carl Wenzel Interview” (Specialized Content)

• Giovanni Antonucci, “Spring 2017”(Cover Design)

Artwork Awards:

Gold:

• Mona Osman, “Seksaka”

• Mary Dorazio, “HIdden Towers”

• Claudia Hauser, “Girl” (Photography)

• Ailish McDevitt, “Blue Suede Shoes” (Photography)

• Maddy Ferris, “Clown” (Sculpture)

• Nikki Jiang, “Mice” (Sculpture)

• Zachary Kushnir, “Keeper” (Sculpture)

Silver

• Caelen Constantino, “Whose Men”

• Emma Buck, “Venice” (Photography)

• Katie Tzivanis, “Look Away” (Photography)

Bronze:

• Anna Naugle, “Photograph” (Photography)

• Clare DiGiovanni, “Doll”  (Sculpture)