Brandon Winn logged onto his computer to create beautiful ball caps reading “Highland Rambler, Best High School Newspaper in Utah” more than a month before the competition that would officially validate that statement.  Last weekend, the Highland Rambler staff and HTVS News joined together to attend the Utah High School Future of Journalism award ceremony at the University of Utah.

At this competition, the awards won by both HTVS and the Rambler played a part in winning the title of Best Media Program in the state for Highland.

Although Highland’s media program did an exceptional job in this competition, the award ceremony also gave insight into what each program should work to improve upon next year and hopefully take first in more categories than this year.

“It was our first year at that particular competition so I think that now that we’ve been we know how to better prepare for it for next year,” HTVS teacher Jenny Hardy said.

Considering it was the first year that both the Rambler and HTVS were able to attend this award ceremony, both advisers feel very proud of how the students did.

“Based on the skill that the Rambler staff has, I’m not surprised by how well we did,” Rambler adviser Brandon Winn said.  “Utah high school media has improved over the last few years, so I knew the staff would have to step it up, and they did just that.”

The Rambler staff attended the Utah High School Future of Journalism award ceremony last year as well, but without HTVS, they were left at a disadvantage in the overall best media category.  The addition of HTVS in this competition helped Highland to win the award, and it was a great experience for the students who worked together to lead Highland’s media program to victory in the competition.

“This is the only competition we get to go to that we do with the Rambler which I think is really cool because we should work together more,” Hardy said.  “We did get to do it together and then we won, showing we’re both really good at what we do and when we do it together, we’re even better.”

The competition also had an award called the coverage cup, which was an award given to the school that most effectively covered a certain topic throughout the full school year.  Although Highland did not participate in that category this year, the Rambler staff hopes to claim the award for the next school year, as well as working on improving in any categories they can.