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The Northwest Florida Press Club Scholastic Journalism Contest

The Press Club’s major annual project is the journalism contest it offers to both give critical feedback and public recognition to area high school and middle school journalists.
For a decade, our partners and co-sponsors in this competition have been the Emerald Coast Public Relations Organization (ECPRO), The Destin Log and the Northwest Florida Daily News. All have contributed scholarship funds and judges in support of the contest and their help is gratefully acknowledged.
The underlying purpose of the contest is to help both aspiring journalists and in so doing, help our own industry by “home-growing” future reporters, editors, news directors, videographers and photographers among other media-related occupations. While new faces from other places have certainly made significant contributions to news coverage of the Emerald Coast, the club has long felt the need to give those growing up here a hand up and welcome them into the world of media professionals.
The contest began as a collaborative effort between the club, it’s co-sponsors and the Okaloosa School District. Within the district, Choctawhatchee High School advisor Linda Evanchyk and former administrator Marie Marshal were instrumental in helping the sponsors develop the critical mass needed to begin and sustain the competition.

Although the call for entries has been in early March since the beginning of the contest, efforts are underway this year to advance the deadline for yearbooks, as those typically are published in the spring preceding the school year in which entries are judged.
This is being done to allow the judges, all of whom are provided by ECPRO, more time to give each entry a careful review and professional content analysis. The idea, as is the case with news print and broadcast entries, is to provide complete and thorough written evaluations to each contestant, whether the submission wins an award or not.
This is done for two reasons: (1) as a learning tool for both student journalists and their advisers and (2) to better guide the judges in selecting winners within the categories they are judging by giving them written reasons upon which to base their decisions.
We expect the call for entries to go out in early March, with a late March deadline for all submissions.

The contest now offers one scholarship, the Mark Stone Outstanding Student Journalist Award. Competition for the one-time $1,000 scholarhsip is limited to high school seniors.
The award is named for the late Mark Stone, a radio reporter who worked for the former WNUE - AM and WMMK - FM radio stations.
Mark died at age 30 from cancer, taken from us much too soon. He is still sorely missed by his colleagues for his friendship and the sense of professionalism that he brought to his work.
The award is made by a three-judge panel, provided by the sponsors, and their decision is final. Prospective winners must be nominated by their advisers to be considered. A short essay outlining the nominee’s reasons for selecting journalism as a career field and a letter from the adviser must accompany the award application.
The criteria for this award, and the accompanying scholarship, is deliberately more subjective than other aspects of the overall journalism competition. While there is no specific “formula” for winning the award, the judges typically look for leadership, academic excellence and journalistic achievement.

For the most recent information about the annual contest:

The Banquet | The Awards

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