Sting Staffers Advance To State
Charles Morgan, Kerringtyn Malley, Melody Colonel and Haley Hoskin (left to right) won awards from the Southern Illinois School Press Association (SISPA) Best Stories Contest. The Chester High School students are all on the staff of The Sting, the school newspaper. The Sting won the SISPA Blue Banner Award for the sixth straight year. Colonel is the paper’s editor.
April 14, 2021
Three members of the Chester High School Sting staff qualified for the IHSA State Journalism competition.
Melody Colonel, Charles Morgan III and Lily Koch competed in Video News at the state tournament on Saturday. They placed third in the Region 4 Sectional held April 10. The top three entrants advance to state.
Narrowly missing in two categories was Kerringtyn Malley. She finished fourth in both Advertising and Editorial Cartooning. William Sorto also placed fourth in Sports Writing.
Also placing for Chester was Alison Venus, who took sixth in Feature Writing.
The Southern Illinois Student Press Association held its regular awards ceremony for high school newspapers this year. The only catch was that it was completely virtual. In a regular year, the Sting team would travel to SIUC, compete in on-site competitions, and have an award ceremony honoring the entered stories.
This year the Sting had 4 students and one overall event place. Those students were Charles Morgan, Haley Hoskin, Kerringtyn Malley, and Melody Colonel. Malley placed first in Editorial Cartooning. Hoskin placed first in Website News and Morgan placed third in Website News. Colonel placed first and second in the Multimedia Story Package.
Overall, the Sting also won the Website Blue Banner. Colonel is editor of The Sting. Only four schools won Blue Banner awards this year. Chester and Edwardsville, the defending IHSA journalism champion, were the only two schools to earn Digital Blue Banner awards. It was the seventh straight year The Sting has won a Blue Banner award.