HUTCHINSON, Kan. — For the second consecutive year, a pair of student broadcast journalists at the Hutchinson Career and Technical Education Academy at Hutchinson High School have been recognized for their work.
Seniors Brooks Armstrong and David Sotelo produced the video “Defending Our Heroes” on the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs for the C-Span StudentCam 2015 competition. The juniors placed third regionally and received a prize of $750 for their efforts. Overall, there were 2,280 videos from nearly 5,000 students submitted and only 150 received a prize. The students were from 45 states, the District of Columbia and Taiwan.
The pair were the only students recognized from Kansas.
The video by Sotelo and Armstrong is available at http://www.viddler.com/v/af59f41f.
The winners of the 2015 StudentCam competition were announced Wednesday, March 4.
Since Armstrong and Sotelo won third prize, HCTEA will receive $125 to spend on digital equipment for the school. Leann Gleason teaches broadcast journalism at HCTEA.
The most popular topic for student videos in 2015 was education. Twelve percent of entries were about education issues such as Common Core, No Child Left Behind and standardized testing. Another 11 percent were about health care while 10 percent were about the economy.
High school students competed on a regional level with the U.S. being divided into three regions – west, central and east. Middle school students were judged on a national basis. Grand prize winners were selected nationally among all regions and grade levels.
The annual competition is sponsored by the C-SPAN Education Foundation. Videos were evaluated by a panel of educators and C-SPAN representatives based on the thoughtful examination of the competition’s theme, quality of expression, inclusion of varying sides of the documentary’s topic and effective incorporation of C-SPAN programming.
All the winning videos may be viewed at www.studentcam.org.