Cedars Claims Top Student Newspaper Award

For the fifth consecutive year, Cedarville University’s student newspaper, Cedars, has received the Frank E. Deaner Award for General Excellence in Collegiate Journalism. The statewide award issued by the Ohio News Media Association (ONMA) marks Cedars as the best newspaper at a small university.

The ONMA’s annual competition is the largest collegiate newspaper contest in Ohio. Cedars competed in Division B, for schools with less than 10,000 enrolled students, against five other collegiate newspapers. 

Even though this is its fifth General Excellence Award, this was Cedar’s best showing at the competition. Cedars won six first place awards and placed in all 10 competition categories, sweeping all three spots for best multi-media package.

Editor Emily Day and writers Kathryn Sill and Susanna Edwards won first place in arts and entertainment. Former editor-in-chief Anna Dembowski won first place in opinion writing, and Campbell Bortel won first place in photojournalism. The Cedars staff also took first place in the news coverage, sports coverage and multimedia package categories.

Cedars won second place in the in-depth reporting, design and headline writing categories while placing third in the best website category.

Under Dembowski, the student-reporters planned, wrote, edited, photographed and produced the award-winning newspaper. Assistant professor of journalism and faculty adviser for Cedars Jeffery Gilbert knows that collaboration among students led to the paper’s success.

“The students work hard to put out the best product they can. They learn and work together well,” said Gilbert. “Success is the hard work, time and team-effort they put into the paper.”

Cedars editor Jennifer Taggart recognizes the significance of the paper’s success. She noted, “It's important to work for a newspaper with a proven record of success. The awards show the high-quality education that journalism majors and other media students receive at Cedarville.”

Located in southwest Ohio, Cedarville University is an accredited, Christ-centered, Baptist institution with an enrollment of 3,760 undergraduate, graduate, and online students in more than 100 areas of study. Founded in 1887, Cedarville is recognized nationally for its authentic Christian community, rigorous academic programs, strong graduation and retention rates, accredited professional and health science offerings, and leading student satisfaction ratings. For more information about the University, visit www.cedarville.edu.