Yesterday, The Eagle’s Eye was named a Columbia Scholastic Press Association Crown Finalist. This is a national level-award that recognizes the work of the newspaper staff from the last school year.

The newspaper’s work is evaluated by a panel of judges that review hundreds of student newspapers from across the country.

The Eagle’s Eye received the honor in the High School Hybrid News category, which examines both the print and online editions of the student publications produced at W. Charles Akins High School.

Many of the editors responsible for this award graduated last year, including Bethany Bissell, Angela Glass, Jon Garza, Jennifer Espinoza and Andy Clay. However, several are still students at Akins, including Mylo Bissell, Ash Catalan, Dee Carreon and Diego Gutierrez.

There are many other staffers who also made indispensable contributions to the effort to tell the important stories of the Akins community, said faculty adviser David Doerr.

There were only 15 other Crown Award recipients in Texas and two others were from Austin, including The Shield at McCallum High School and The Featherduster at Westlake High School.

Ninety-seven news print and hybrid publications were chosen as Finalists for the CSPA Crown Awards to be presented in March 2020 at ceremonies in New York City.  The news print and hybrid publications were published during the 2018-19 academic year.

The Crown Awards honor top student publications chosen from CSPA’s members.  Crowns are selected for overall excellence in a head-to-head comparison. Student publishing in news, magazine, yearbook or digital (online) formats are all-eligible.  During Crown consideration, publications are judged on their excellence as shown by their design, photography, concept, coverage and writing. A total of 1,145 publications were eligible for judging.

Crown Finalists are actual winners, not nominees. Some will be announced as Gold Crowns; the rest are Silver Crowns. Final results will be announced and presented at the CSPA ceremonies in March 2020.

Read the Full Press Release linked here.