Along with the annual display of Kansas culture, the Scholastic Press Corps program took place at the state fair on Friday. Ten members of the Manhattan High School publications staff attended the fair and took part in the SPC journalism and video production competitions.

As the day began, the participants were assigned stories regarding the events at the fair as well as a randomly chosen main story to compile together as a newsletter. The MHS print team also took up an additional social media challenge. They spent the rest of the day out and about at the fair, gathering the necessary information for their articles and taking photos of the events. After finalising their stories, photos, and layout, the team finished and submitted their day’s work.    

The SPC program was established with the intent of providing insight into the life of journalists and media producers. The competitive and time-based aspect of the program added to the realism and further proved the SPC experience to be a gratifying and educational one for the students that participated.

“The competition was the closest thing I’m going to get to real-life journalism until college,” The Mentor’s Editor-in-Chief Angie Moss said, “so it was a great learning experience. The deadline pressure was intense and I was right down to the last four minutes with the design of the newsletter so it was amazing to actually meet the deadline and have such a good product to be able to enter into the competition.”