LHStoday Awarded Distinguished Site By SNO

The student managed website is recognized as the 13th in the nation and first in Missouri to receive this award.

Ella Quinney, Editor-in-Chief of the Ledger | January 7, 2026

Will Nolan recieved LHStoday’s first Best of Sno award this year for his article “Where Did the Puppies Go?”

LHStoday received their eighth consecutive Distinguished Site award on Jan. 5. The site was the first in Missouri to receive the award.

The distinguished site award is given by SNO (Student Newspaper Online), an organization dedicated to online student journalism. In order to achieve this title, the website must earn six badges. Each badge focuses on a different aspect of the website in order to ensure that the entire website is improved.

“These badges represent the essential elements of a professional online newsroom,” said Jason Wallestad, co-founder of SNO Sites. “It’s always impressive to see student journalists push their sites—and their storytelling—to this level”

Launched to set clear standards for high-quality student journalism online, the SNO Distinguished Sites program celebrates the hard work of student journalists and their advisers. In the most recent cycle, 73 schools earned Distinguished Site status by earning the full badge set.

The task to earn the Distinguished Site award was led by editor-in-chief Lorelei Wise (12). Wise spent countless hours editing stories, the website, and delegating work to her staff in order to receive the award.

“It’s a large matter of foresight, delegation, and trying to understand things from a long-term perspective, a weekly (perspective), and an individual level,” Wise said.

The steps towards obtaining the award started in August and have been in progress the entire school year.

“I’m thrilled that they were able to achieve this status for the eighth consecutive year. It truly was a team effort that started in online news,” Jonathan Hall, publications adviser, said.

After months of hard work to earn the title distinguished site, the online news staff still will not be resting, because it is their job to cover the events and people of Liberty.

Distinguished Site Award Requirements

Best of SNO

Best of SNO is an award given to select stories. Stories that win this title are unique in some aspect, whether that be to the school or the angle taken when written. The judges for this award seek engaging articles that show good journalism. Check out LHStodays Best of SNO stories.

Audience Engagement

To receive the audience engagement badge the site must meet requirements. The first being a minimum number of views on the website. The second part of earning this badge is posting consistently on the website's associated Instagram account over a four week period.

Multimedia

To receive the multimedia badge the site must submit three videos, three photo slideshows, and three podcasts. All submitted projects must have a journalistic tone and be solely produced by students in the program.

Story Page Excellence

To receive the story page excellence badge the site must submit six unique stories that each meet a different criteria: elements that enhance the story, a 5-segmented infobox included, a long-form story that is at least 5 segments, quality photos, photos/videos/graphics credited, featured image and byline included.

Continuous Coverage Badge

To receive the continuous coverage badge the site must meet a few criteria when covering their chosen stories. The first being “developing stories,” for this part the site must follow an event and write three separate news stories on the event throughout its occurrence. The second criteria is “quick coverage,” for this part three entirely separate stories must be written and published within two days of the event happening. The final criteria for this badge is “sustained coverage,” for this part the site picks four different categories of which at least one new story was published over four consecutive weeks.

Site Excellence

To receive the site excellence badge the site must redesign their webpage to meet a series of requirements and to show a general understanding of design.

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Our Goal

Your donation will support the student journalists of Liberty High School. For the 2025-26 school year, we are trying to purchase additional cameras and video equipment for our growing media program. We also plan to attend the national journalism conference in Orlando in November 2026.

About the Contributors

Ella Quinney, Editor-in-Chief of The Ledger

Ella Quinney is a senior, this is her fourth year in Publications. Quinney is Co-Editor-in-Chief of the Ledger magazine, along with a reporter for the website. She can’t wait to work alongside her staff to produce the magazine, and work on the website this year. Outside of Publications, she is Key Club’s editor and a member of DECA. Quinney bakes, reads, and hangs out with her friends in her free time. She is looking forward to a great last year, in and out of the classroom.

MaryKate Stroud, Photo Editor

MaryKate Stroud is a junior, and this is her second year in Publications. MaryKate is one of the managers for girls Varsity Basketball. MaryKate is also the President for FCCLA, apart of Light House Leadership Team and National Honor Society. MaryKate enjoys doing sports photography and traveling. MaryKate currently works at Kinetic Park. MaryKate plans on going to college after high school and is currently indecisive on where she wants to go, but she knows that she wants to go for broadcasting and human resources.