The Department of Journalism and Mass Communication had fifteen students bring home more than 40 awards from statewide competitions.

The Optimist won Best in Show against all weekly student print publications in the state at this year’s Texas Intercollegiate Press Association convention in Dallas.

The competition took place March 30-April 1 and included both pre-submitted and live contests.

TIPA on-site contest winners:

Jonathan Ward, senior advertising and public relations major from Plano, snagged two first place awards for PR Release Writing and Crisis Management.

Senior convergence journalism major Abbey Bowling, from Keller, won first place in Print Advertising.

Convergence journalism junior from Bandera, Jonathan Raitz, came in first for TV News Writing.

Allison Brown, senior convergence journalism major from Midland, rounded out the first place winners with an award for Magazine Design.

Other awards include: second place in Print News Writing to Haley Remenar, junior convergence journalism major from Albuquerque, New Mexico; third place in Radio Advertising to Mercedez Hernandez, senior convergence journalism major from Anson; one honorable mention for Live Video news by Amber Chavez, freshmen multimedia major from Austin and another for Radio Announcing to Max Preston, convergence journalism major from Amarillo.

25 of students’ pre-submitted works from the last year also placed in various categories.

The Society of Professional Journalists’ Region Eight conference recognized seven students for eight awards of excellence.

Five of The Optimist’s submitted works were winners in their category and three were finalists.