Hallettsville ISD journalism class attends industry convention in Boston

The Hallettsville ISD journalism program embarked on a trip to Boston, Massachusetts on Nov. 1 for the Journalism Education Association convention.

“It was great! We went through three days of workshops and the girls competed in a national contest,” Journalism teacher Christi Opiela said.

There were three winners for these contests. Peyton Pasak won excellence in broadcast news writing, Kodie Bible won excellence for editorial writing, and Adalyn Pohl won honorable mention for news writing. Only six of the 18 students in the class went on the trip; it presented scheduling conflicts for the rest of the them.

“This was an amazing opportunity for the kids. Some of these kids have never even traveled out of the state,” Opiela said. “The kids learned a lot about new trends in journalism and broadcasting to keep them up to date with what we do here in school. They did several breakout sessions and learned about things such as using AI correctly, and how to not plagiarize.”

Pohl had a great time at the convention and, in addition to her wins, she says she learned a lot about journalism.

“We learned a lot at the convention and met a lot of people from around the country,” Pohl said. “I went to a really interesting seminar about how music can affect your thinking and your writing. We learned how you can use similar tactics that musicians use when you’re writing to convey emotion and how writing and words and the way they sound together when spoken out loud is actually one of the strongest triggers of memory. That was one of the most interesting things I learned. I also learned some new tactics in interviewing people.”

One of the main highlights of the event was how the kids were able to network with other fellow journalist, Opiela said.

There were 4,400 students at this convention from all across the United States,” Opiela said. “Getting to network with kids from big schools and small schools was really great for the kids.”

The journalism program applied to a couple of local grants and hosted an open mic night to fund this trip.

“We did do some fundraising and got some sponsors, but we’re still lacking about $2,000 for the funding of this trip,” Opiela said. “We would always accept donations. I’d love to do this again, there’s just a funding issue.”

JEA does a spring and fall convention. The next spring convention is in Kansas City. Opiela said she’d go again with her students in a heartbeat.

"It was an amazing learning experience and I wish all the kids had an opportunity to go,” Opiela said. “If we could find more sponsors, that’d be awesome."