U of A Student Publications Traveler and Hill Take Top Awards at Regional Competitions

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Sophie Brock, 2021-22 editor of Hill magazine, and Sarah Komar, 2021-22 editor of The Arkansas Traveler.

Student media at the U of A routed the competition at this year's regional journalism awards.

Led by editor Sarah Komar, The Arkansas Traveler took first place in the regional SPJ Mark of Excellence Awards for Best Newspaper. Traveler staff writer and artist Lilli Martin was a finalist in the category of Data Visualization and winner in the category of Arts/Fashion Reporting.

The U of A student magazine, Hill, edited by Sophie Brock, won first place in the same contest for Best Magazine, and contributor Kari Adams won first place in the category of Feature Writing for her story about the growing popularity of paganism in the Bible Belt.

Abbi Ross won first place first in the category of General News Reporting for her in-depth reporting on the shockwaves still being felt from the race massacre in Elaine, Arkansas, more than a century ago. 

The regional competition includes all four-year schools in Tennessee, Louisiana, Mississippi and Arkansas. All regional first-place winners will compete at the national SPJ Mark of Excellence Awards this fall. 

Under Komar's leadership, The Traveler also won Great Plains Student Newspaper of the Year in the Great Plains Journalism Awards staged by the Tulsa Press Club, besting rival programs in Oklahoma, Missouri, Kansas, Iowa, Nebraska, South and North Dakota and Arkansas. Komar also won the Dan Harrison Memorial Great Plains Student Writer of the Year award and the Dan Harrison Memorial Great Plains Student Editor in Chief of the Year award.

Robert Stewart, the incoming editor of The Traveler, and Sarah Komar, the outgoing editor, accept a plaque from the Great Plains Journalism Club.

This is the first time in the program's history to win the trifecta of the Great Plains' top awards for student newspapers. Meanwhile, Brock and her staff won the award for Dan Harrison Memorial Great Plains Student Magazine of the Year for the 2022 edition of Hill magazine, on magazine racks now across campus. 

Komar will start an internship at The New York Times this summer; Brock, the first junior to take the helm of the student magazine in its 10-year history, returns in the fall to finish her degree in the School of Journalism and Strategic Media.

The Arkansas Traveler was advised by Gerald Jordan, retiring associate professor of journalism. Hill magazine is advised by associate professor Bret Schulte. 

"The J-School couldn't be prouder of its students," Schulte said. "We take pride in our curriculum, but the real testament to our work is what happens when we're not around, the work done in the newsrooms run by our students."

The 2021-22 staff of The Arkansas Traveler.