By Shannon McKenna
Round Table editor

11 categories. Over 500 entries. 21 schools. Middletown: a top contender.

Middletown High School’s The Round Table has annually competed in West Virginia University’s Perley Isaac Reed School of Journalism high school journalism competition. The students typically enjoy taking the trip down to WVU to participate in journalism workshops, explore the campus and enjoy the award ceremony and dinner.

But due to complications this year, the journalism class was unable to attend the competition. This was a major disappointment for many of the students; however, it was hardest on the senior veterans of the class.

“I was disappointed because it is my senior year, but I understood that it had to be important for Mr. Kady not to take us, because under any other circumstance we would have gone,” said MHS senior Lisa Conley.

Conley was not the only student who was disappointed at not being able to attend the competition this year.

“I was really frustrated because the award ceremony is one of the highlights of my year,” said MHS senior Julia Karcewski, “but even though we didn’t get to go, I knew in the competition we would still do really well.”

Although students still entered their stories, photos, and layouts, the initial rush of anticipation was not there. As the competition came closer a turn of events made it possible for two veteran MHS journalism students, seniors Ana Billotti and Shannon McKenna, to travel with their families to the journalism banquet, and to represent their school.

“I really love WVU. It’s my senior year and I didn’t want to miss out on it, so if there was some way I could go, I was going to go,” said MHS senior Ana Billotti.

Billotti has gone to the journalism competition since she was a sophomore journalism two student; she’s now a journalism five senior. For her, getting to enjoy the journalism competition with the class and the feeling when you win an award is one of the highlights of her school year, so she made a conscious effort to go even without the class.

MHS journalism teacher Noah Kady was not expecting the amount of awards that the class received this year.

“We were really busy this year,” said Noah Kady. “At first, I didn’t think we would do as well as we have in past years, but after the initial surprise I realized that the quantity of work we produced wasn’t a lot, but the quality of it was award-winning.”

Overall, the class won a total of 14 awards out of 33 in the division one category in which they compete. Winners included seniors Shannon McKenna, Cortney St. John, Julia Karcewski, Lisa Conley, Emma Trapp, Ana Billotti, Blair Donald, Victoria Bauer, and junior Jake Dziubla.

Shannon McKenna won first place critical review, second place newspaper layout and design, second place photojournalism, and second place sports writing. Cortney St. John won third place feature writing, and first place newspaper layout and design. Julia Karcewski won first place news writing. Lisa Conley won third place news writing, and first place opinion writing. Emma Trapp won second place opinion writing. Ana Billotti won third place opinion writing.  Blair Donald won third place photojournalism. Victoria Bauer won first place sports writing. Jake Dziubla won first place feature writing.

The only junior to win an award, Jake Dziubla said,” Next year is going to be tough without the seniors, but I think with Mr. Kady’s guidance and hard work from the students we will win awards. Maybe not as many as this year, but we can try.”