MESQUITE — Eastfield College students Jonathan Wences and Alex Hernandez were named national finalists in editorial cartooning Monday, when the Society of Professional Journalists released its 2014 Mark of Excellence Awards.Judges selected a national winner and two finalists from a group of winners from the SPJ’s 12 regions. Previously, the Eastfield duo had earned first place in Region 8, which includes four-year and two-year colleges and universities from Texas and Oklahoma. Eastfield entered a series of three cartoons that ran in The Et Cetera student newspaper during 2014 into the competition. The cartoons addressed the issues of race, immigration and education.
“Jonathan and Alex took timely and sensitive topics and conveyed messages about them through art,” Eastfield College Student Publications Manager Beth Langton said. “This isn’t an easy task, and they performed flawlessly. I’m so proud to see their work receive national recognition.”
The award caps another strong year for Eastfield College’s Student Publications team, which also won the 2014 Pacemaker award given by the Associated Collegiate Press to the top college newspapers in the country. Only four two-year schools in the country received the prestigious award. Staff members from The Et Cetera traveled to Philadelphia in October to accept the award, as well as two individual national awards: fifth place for Best Newspaper Spread/Page by Yolanda Ramirez and honorable mention for Story of the Year by Justin David Tate. The newspaper also won second place in Best of Show at the convention.
In April, Eastfield College also took home 35 awards from the Texas Intercollegiate Press Association convention in San Antonio.
“I tell my students all the time that they are creating good journalism, but I suspect they think I’m required to praise them,” Langton said. “Winning awards like these shows them that experts in the field respect their work. And it gives them a shot of confidence to continue learning and improving.”
A complete list of the SPJ Mark of Excellence award winners can be found at www.spj.org/moe14.asp.
