LHStoday has won their sixth consecutive distinguished site award recently for exceling in online journalism.  The site was the ninth high school news website in the nation to receive this recognition, making it the first time in the site’s history being in the top 10.  

The School Newspapers Online (SNO) distinguished site program has a total of six badges that have to be earned in order to become a distinguished site: Best of SNO, Audience Engagement, Multimedia, Story Page Excellence, Continuous Coverage, and Site Excellence. Each badge has to be submitted separately showing examples of student journalism that fits that criteria. The LHStoday website is the hub of student publications here at LHS, with classes such as online news, journalism, yearbook, magazine and broadcast media contributing content to it regularly. 

Publications adviser Jonathan Hall says he is very proud of how far the website has come. 

“We really try to cover local news in and around the school,” Hall said. “I’m really proud that it’s all student led, and that it became what I wanted it to become.”

The editor-in-chief of the website, senior Anna Simms, says that she was so excited when she found out about the website winning distinguished site. 

“I went on my phone to check it and when I saw that we had all the badges filled and accepted, I freaked out,” Simms said.  “I ran to get my laptop and double check to make sure that it was real and we actually got the badges accepted.” Simms loves being an editor and being able to push herself to learn new things.  

Along with the distinguished site, LHStoday has submitted for a Pacemaker award. The Pacemaker is the highest award that a publication can win. They will find out if they made it as a finalist later this month. The yearbook staff was a 2022 finalist for the Pacemaker.