ULL students rack up 14 journalism awards

LAFAYETTE — The University of Louisiana at Lafayette received 14 awards at the Southeast Journalism Conference annual convention held recently at the University of Tennessee at Martin, according to a news release.

Eight of the awards were in the 2011 Best of the South competition and six were from the convention’s on-site competition.

“Louisiana Focus,” the student-produced radio program that airs Mondays on KRVS-FM, the National Public Radio affiliate on the ULL campus, won first place in the audio news category in Best of the South, and Alessi Johnson, a senior broadcast major from Baton Rouge, won first place in the best radio reporter category. Zane Hill, a senior journalism major from Kent, Ohio, won second in that category.

Hope Rurik, of Eunice, a December journalism graduate and a reporter for The Daily Iberian in New Iberia, won three awards: second for College Journalist of the Year, sixth place in feature writing and 10th place in news writing. Other winners: Emily Henagan, of Crowley, a December journalism graduate, placed eighth in feature writing; Elizabeth Rose, a junior journalism major from Lake Charles, placed eighth in news writing.

In the on-site competition, Nick Fontenot, a senior journalism major from Lafayette, won first place in sportswriting for the third consecutive year. Rose won third place in news writing, Hill took third place in feature writing, and Tiffany Segura, a senior journalism major from Loreauville,won third place in copy editing. Johnson received an honorable mention in the radio news reporting category. ULL also tied for third place in the sweepstakes award in the on-site competition, based on a point system.