Dr. Kenneth Pybus was named Adviser of Year and the JMC Network staff won various awards including TV sweepstakes at the Texas Intercollegiate Press Association convention in Corpus Christi last week.

Pybus, associate professor of journalism and mass communication, won the award for his exceptional mentoring during coverage of the Nov. 4 bus accident as well as seven years of advising the Optimist.

“It’s an important honor, and it means a lot to me because I’ve been involved in TIPA since I was a student, and several students and former students worked together to nominate me,” Pybus said.

Students from the Department of Journalism and Mass Communication competed against students from across the state in onsite and presubmitted competitions.

The students brought back 46 awards, 12 of them being first place certificates in newspaper, radio, news website, literary magazine and television categories.

Mark Smith, sophomore convergence journalism major from Powhatan, Va., was awarded the $400 Frank Buckley Scholarship at the convention.

“A few months ago Kenneth told me I should apply for the scholarship because he thought I had a good shot at it,” Smith said. “I’m honored they chose me.”

Smith, next year’s editor in chief of the Optimist, also took home first place in live radio sports writing.

“I started at the Optimist as a sports reporter but I haven’t written any sports since I began work as managing editor last August,” he said. “It was great to win that contest to know that I still got it.”

The semi-weekly student newspaper placed third in the best-in-show contest. In television presubmitted competition, the JMC Network won the sweepstakes award for compiling the most and highest awards in that category.

“This is the first time our program has won sweepstakes in the television category. We emphasize converged curriculum, which means we work to train students as journalists across media,” Pybus said. “It shows that emphasis is paying off.”

Many of the awards in presubmitted competition were for student coverage of the Nov. 4 bus crash near Ballinger involving 12 students from the Department of Agriculture and Environmental Science, three of the department’s faculty members and one faculty spouse.  On their way back to ACU, the JMC students stopped by the crash site to remember those affected by the accident, including Anabel Reid, who was killed in the crash.