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GSPA Fall Conference Gets Rave Reviews
11/16/07
Author:
Carolyn Crist, External Affairs Intern
Contact: Joe Dennis, jodennis@uga.edu
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More than 500 students from 30 high schools improved their journalism skills when they attended the 2007 Georgia Scholastic Press Association Fall Conference in the Tate Center last month.For the first time in five years, GSPA held a single statewide training convention for student journalists, and students and advisers said they benefited.
"We'd like to thank Joe Dennis for his diligence in preparing an engaging and hands-on fall conference for the high school journalists of Georgia," said David Ragsdale, adviser of the Odyssey and Iliad publications at Clarke Central High School. "From the concert to the sessions, kids and advisers gained a great deal of perspective and found ways to tweak their products." 
A number of educational sessions provided students with hands-on learning.
Journalism professionals and educators presented sessions ranging from page design and feature writing to news writing and how to support a staff financially. The format allowed eight sessions to run simultaneously throughout the conference. The sessions were held Thursday, Oct. 11 from 7:30 p.m. to 11 p.m. Friday sessions were conducted between 9 a.m. and 4 p.m.
Nick Edelstein, a University of Georgia student and Athens local, performed with his blues band during the conference's opening session. Edelstein and his band tour the Southeast with their original tales of growth, perspective and metamorphosis.
"I've played everything and I always came back to the blues," Edelstein said. 
Nick Edelstein and his band were interviewed on-stage by Grady master's student Kimberly Davis.
It was the first-ever GSPA concert, and the students showed their support by taking extra time after the concert to take pictures of the band and get autographs. Kimberly Davis, a Grady graduate student and former staff writer at Ebony, also interviewed the band on-stage as a forerunner to her Friday educational session on "Covering the Stars."
In addition, a "first issue" competition was held in which schools were encouraged to submit the first issue of their newspaper for review.
"I hope it was beneficial for staffs to compare first issues with other schools," said Joe Dennis, director of GSPA. "It's always a rough time of the year, and hopefully staffs learned from the successes of other publications." 
Student attended a number of helpful presentations.
The following staffs won the competition for various awards: Best News Coverage, The Panoptic, Lee County High School; Best Sports Coverage, North High Times, North Forsyth High School; Best Feature Coverage, The Talon, Dacula High School; Best Opinion, Odyssey, Clarke Central High School; Best Front Page Design, The Prowler, Starr's Mill High School; Best Overall Design, BrookSpeak, Pebblebrook High School; and Best Overall, Carpe Diem, Decatur High School.
Cecil Bentley, Grady director of career services, conducted an "on-the-spot critique" session in which students presented their publications to Bentley, who gave immediate feedback and recommendations. The session proved to be very popular.
"Cecil Bentley gave us his full attention, and his attitude showed he really cared about us," said Anita Padgett, adviser of The Verve at The King's Academy. "Even though he's been involved with college students for years, he hasn't lost touch with high schoolers! Most importantly, Mr. Bentley has a kind way about him that allowed my students to receive hard comments without getting discouraged. They left motivated and inspired." 
Nick Edelstein and his blues band performed live for the students.
The past two years GSPA has hosted smaller regional workshops, but session offerings were limited. This year classes were available to all walks of journalism ? broadcast, literary magazines, newspapers and yearbooks.
"We had previously not attended the GSPA conference because we had been told it was excellent for newspaper staffs but only so-so for yearbook. We don't know about the past conferences but my staff felt that this was one of the best we had attended," said Suzette Orr, adviser of Carpe Diem at North Forsyth High School. "There was not a session we went to that we didn't learn from."
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