Students from GCHS publications classes recently got the opportunity to go to the KSPA conference held at Wichita State University on Monday Sept. 29. The five hour conference, which took place from 8:30 AM to 1:30 PM, opened with a general session, before breaking into three 40 minute time slots where students could listen to experts of their choice. Students then got an hour lunch break before a bonus section to close out the day.
“KSPA is the Kansas Scholastic Press Association, it is an organized central committee for the state of Kansas that is involved in publication. Once a year, they have a fall conference and in the winter, they have a workshop usually,” Brian Nelson, publications teacher, said.
Along with Nelson, students on the trip included: Abigail Elam, Savanna Reyes, Isaac Owens and Zachary Stabel from the Sugar Beet class and Trinh Dang, Melina Saucedo, Amy Diep, Kevin Jaco and Samuel Soto for Yearbook respectively.
15 experts headlined the event including journalists from The Wichita Eagle, KMUW 89.1 reporters, WSU professors, managing editors, a 2025 KSPA Courage in Journalism Award winner, and the executive director of KSPA.
“A student has a list, a schedule of where they can go, they can sit in to fine tune writing, photography, design, leadership, any of those topics, then they change to another one with another speaker,” Nelson said.
Nelson believes that journalism helps students to become better writers, helps reserved students to vocalize and open up and helps people to expand on their photography skills.
“This trip was a really good opportunity for me to learn more about publication, not just yearbook itself as co-editor in chief. I’ve learned a lot that I can carry on throughout college,” Trinh Dang, Health senior, said.
Sugar Beet’s Isaac Owens went to the conference not only to hone his journalism skills but also with goals of improving the Sugar Beet as a whole.
“Hopefully [I can] make my stories better, make them more entertaining, make them more serious. I’m really trying to bring more people to read the Sugar Beet, because it does take a lot of effort, but if we can make it a really good newspaper it would be really good for that,” Owens said.
Student publications has another trip planned in November where they will take a group of juniors from Sugar Beet and Yearbook to Nashville, Tennessee for the yearly JEA trip.
