By DAVE DOMESCIK | Staff Writer

PELHAM – Students involved in the Pelham High School broadcast and yearbook programs won multiple awards and shined in various competitions at the Alabama Scholastic Press Association Annual State Convention in Tuscaloosa.

Top schools from across the Yellowhammer State competed in categories such as broadcast news, sports reporting, podcasting and more. Along with pre-submitted contests, students also competed in on-site challenges, where they had just three hours to submit projects on the fly.

PHS students won five first-place titles in pre-submitted contests and placed in two of them. Furthermore, the broadcast and yearbook programs at PHS were given Superior ratings in both Overall Broadcast and Overall Yearbook by the ASPA.

Pelham won in the following categories: Broadcast News Feature, Broadcast News Story, Broadcast Sports Story, Podcast and Yearbook Sports Spread. The school placed in the Broadcast Sports Anchor and Podcast categories as well.

Pelham won two first-place titles in the on-site challenges, placing in four of them. PHS won the Broadcast Anchor and Yearbook Feature Photo categories, while placing in Broadcast News PKG, Broadcast Anchor, Editing and Yearbook Spread Design.

Along with the contests, Pelham students also participated in sessions with various speakers from across the journalism industry. Terrin Waack, the digital team reporter for the Atlanta Falcons, was the event’s keynote speaker.

Justin Foster, an instructor at PHS and the director of the school’s broadcast program, was proud of his students considering the focus they put on certain areas throughout the school year.

“I am really proud of our accomplishments in news stories,” Foster said. “We have made this an emphasis in the program and we won first place for News Story, Feature Story and Sports Story, which shows our progression in that area.”

Foster was also proud of his students for winning the Superior designation for the broadcast and yearbook programs, but is aiming even higher in the future.

“We always get a lot of great feedback in the overall assessment of our show and I think we see the most improvement after ASPA because we get a lot of feedback,” Foster said. “We’re excited to get Superior but the goal is to get the top honor, All-Alabama.”

While the event itself is competitive, Foster believes that the benefits of the event go beyond the awards and recognition.

“It’s a really collaborative atmosphere and a lot of like-minded kids with similar interests,” Foster said. “There are industry professionals and professors from UA who lead sessions to give the students real-world lessons and advice. I always tell our kids ‘You’re competing with yourself, not these kids. If you went to school together, they would be your best friends.’ It’s a great opportunity to network.”

Foster shared that, while PHS is thankful for competitions like ASPA, its focus is more on work ethic and creative efforts rather than praise and trophies.

“I think it’s a nice acknowledgement but you can’t put all of your value into one award or competition,” Foster said. “The old adage in TV is ‘You’re only as good as your last show’ which is what we stress to our kids. ASPA assessed only a fraction of what we do, so a lot of our success, in my opinion, is in the day-to-day content our students are creating, the impact they have on the school and the community, and the opportunities we create for our kids to succeed once they graduate. We’ve made a ton of progress but there is still so much work to do.”

While the program is designed to launch burgeoning careers in the broadcast industry, Foster believes the program has greater holistic benefits as well.

“TV production develops a lot of life skills: professionalism, interpersonal skills, teamwork, accountability, collaboration, reliability, etc.” Foster said. “We have a lot of kids who have found professional success in this field, but far more who took the class casually and left our program with skills to help them in fields outside of TV. We have alumni from the program in law school, sales, engineering, education, physical therapy and the list goes on.”

Foster concluded by recognizing that the success the school merited at ASPA can only bring good things to the broadcast and yearbook programs in the future.

“It breeds a culture of success in the program and raises the bar for our expectations,” Foster said. “Our young kids see the older kids winning and want to do the same as they get more established in the program.”

For more information on Pelham High School and its broadcast and yearbook programs, visit Phs.pelhamcityschools.org.