On Monday October 3, at the Ramada Plaza in Casper, the Kelly Walsh journalism team won both the Golden Pony award and the Wyoming state title for yearbook, for the third consecutive year.

The state journalism convention, involving speakers, workshops, awards, and a luncheon, draws students from all over the state of Wyoming. At the Ramada Plaza where the event is held, Ron Franscell, a keynote speaker, was a Kelly Walsh alumni and 5-time Pulitzer Prize nominee as well as decorated journalistic advisor.

Each year, different out-of-state judges travel to Casper to give awards for newspaper, yearbook, literary magazine, and broadcasting at the event; this year, two decorated advisors came from Colorado. Jed Palmer was this year’s judge for the KW 2016 yearbook, awarding the publications staff 889 points. This high score afforded them the “Golden Pony” level of achievement, the highest award in the competition and an allusion to the old method of delivering news: The Pony Express. The other two recognized levels are the Silver Merit ranging from 700-849 points and the Bronze Star ranging from 500-699 points. KW was the only school awarded the Pony this year, being trailed most closely by Cheyenne East with 730 points and Green River with 656 points. Natrona came in 5th.

“I’m not sure if people know how much work really does go into creating a yearbook,” said Miss Masterson, the yearbook adviser and Journalism teacher at KW, “It’s a yearlong project…very long hours and commitment oftentimes outside of class time. And when you win these awards, it makes all of that worth it. It’s a grind—it’s a marathon, not a sprint.”

The amount of time spent on making a book meant to encompass an entire school year for nearly 1800 students is considerable, and a task requiring perseverance. All the students involved know how much effort the yearbook takes, and the extensive rubric for judging it reflects that. The score sheet with all marks returned to the contestants is over four pages long. The categories of judgment included theme development, typography, photography, organization, writing, reader services, folios, unity and personality, content, design, headlines, editing and proofing, composition and group portraits, and the advertising section.

And this year, Kelly Walsh lost notable points only due to the omission of a colophon, the epilogue of a yearbook that explains the theme and provides an index of resources used in the creation an essential in a yearbook, to explain all of the general information and to contain all of the citations. Next year, the journalism convention will take place at LCCC in Cheyenne, Wyoming and the yearbook team hopes to take first there, too.