Ideas became reality after LHS Publications staff members applied to be a National Scholastic Press Association Pacemaker award winner.
The NSPA Pacemaker is deemed as the association’s preeminent award and has awarded schools since 1921. It is set to honor the best of the best high school journalism publications and projects and out of the box work.
Pacemakers don’t come easy for journalistic schools. Most schools don’t even make it to nominations. And because of this, the idea of winning a Pacemaker tends to become out of reach.
Only five schools were given a nomination for the Innovation Pacemaker for the year 2025 and one of those schools being a school in London, England. LHS Publications was the only school in Missouri to get nominated this year in the category of Innovation.
This award was given to the staff because of their out of the box thinking with the school board candidate town hall productions once a year. No other school does Town Hall like LHS Publications does. It gives a unique perspective to the community about the BOE candidates while also involving community interaction the whole way through. One unique aspect to Town Hall is the fact that it is fully student run and managed. This is what Pacemakers are all about.
“Student media is rapidly changing and top programs are finding innovative ways to deliver content to their readers while building unified and converged teams,” NSPA associate director Gary Lundgren said. “Print is now just one component — there is far more to a successful student media program than publishing the campus newspaper and yearbook.”
While the award was only given as a nomination at this point, there is still hope. The NSPA will announce three winners of the Innovation Pacemaker during the national convention in Seattle April 24-26.
Moving up to nominations is a big goal for the LHS Publications staff. They also received a nomination for the 2022 yearbook. No Wentzville school has ever won a Pacemaker before. This high stake leaves anxiety in the air about the announcement.
Two staff members in particular led the team to a pacemaker. Staff member Lilly Brown (12), and Amber Sethaler (12) worked for around two months on a website about Town Hall.
“I’m super excited and happy,” Brown said. “I was super anxious about it for awhile but now I’m excited to see how it goes in Seattle.”
As Seattle comes closer, one thing is for sure. This staff will be on their toes the whole entire time.
