Since the Eagle Eye became an online publication in 2013, it has won numerous state and national journalism, photography, podcast, and video production awards. This school year was no exception with the staff earning several awards from different organizations throughout the school year.
The Eagle Eye won eight state-wide awards from the Pennsylvania News Media Association, had a record-breaking 18 stories published nationally on the Best of SNO student journalism network, and earned its 11th consecutive Distinguished Site Award from Student Newspapers Online.
At the 2024 Keystone Media Awards in Harrisburg, the Eagle Eye won eight awards, the second most by any high school publication in the state.
In the photography categories, senior Allison Beeman won first place in Sports Photography for her photo of Seth Hoover evading a tackle during the Tyrone vs Central game.
Junior Alivia Anderson won third place in the Sports Photography category for her photo of Andrew Weaver and Gayge Miller celebrating a touchdown.
Freshman Elaina Hess won second place in the news photo category for her photo from the Student Council Tailgate before the Bellwood football game.
The Keystone Media Awards follow the calendar year, not the academic year, so two winners were from the TAHS Class of 2023, Cassidy Miksich and MacKenzie Hyde.
Hyde and current senior Elijah Knarr won first place in Ongoing News Coverage for the Fires in Tyrone: An Ongoing Series, covering the repeating fires occurring in Tyrone for the last couple of years.
Miksich won two awards, a second and a third place. Her second-place award was for a sports story recognizing TAHS Alumni Courtney Williams for her historic NCAA champion title. She also earned third for her personality profile for her profile of TAHS seniors Caleb and Ashlynn McKinney, who were on Sesame Street as babies.
Senior Bree Paul won first place for Sports Stories for her story “Love it or Hate it, the One-on-One Foul is No More.”
The podcast-hosting duo of Logan Rumberger and Austin Lucas won second place for their TSPN podcast series.
To see all of the state-wide award winners, click the link below:
2024-Student-Keystone-Media-Award-Winners-DIV-4
To read all of the Eagle Eye stories that won Keystone Media Awards this year, click the slideshow below:
The Eagle Eye had 18 of the 52 stories that it submitted to Best of SNO published nationally.
This beats the Eagle Eye’s previous record for stories published in a year by three stories.
Best of SNO received over 16,000 submissions from 594 schools during the 2023-2024 school year. Of those, only 2,448 stories from 353 schools were published.
To read all of these stories published on Best of SNO this year, click the link below:
SNO DISTINGUISHED SITE AWARD
The Eagle Eye was also one of just five publications in Pennsylvania, and 73 nationwide, to earn SNO’s Distinguished Site Award.
To earn this award the staff must meet the criteria in six areas:
- Continuous Coverage: A news staff must update their site regularly and demonstrate a commitment to timely online journalism.
- Site Excellence: A news staff must customize their homepage beyond the initial SNO design with a clear sense of purpose for every element on the homepage.
- Story Page Excellence: A news staff must submit eight fully-developed stories from the current school year that go beyond the text to enhance the reader’s experience.
- Excellence in Writing: This is automatically awarded to any news staff with at least one story from this school year published on Best of SNO, a site dedicated to excellence in student journalism.
- Multimedia: A news staff must submit at least three videos, three slideshows, and three podcast episodes published during the current school year that meet standards of excellence in multimedia production.
- Engagement: A news staff must meet a minimum traffic threshold, use social media to engage their audience, and study analytics to measure their readership
Eagle Eye adviser Todd Cammarata was very pleased with the number of awards won this year and the quality of the stories, photographs, and podcasts.
“I am proud of this year’s staff for continuing the standard of excellence that we set for student journalism, photography, video production, social media, and podcasting,” Cammarata said. “I am already looking forward to next year to see if we can continue to provide the same level of quality for our readers.”
