Monday, February 20, 2023 – Mountain Brook High School students from the ‘Spartan 2 News’ TV/News Media class as well as the Sword & Shield News Magazine class traveled to Tuscaloosa last week to participate in the annual convention for the Alabama Scholastic Press Association (ASPA). Students brought home a combined 50 individual awards and senior Zach Touger, was named the Alabama Broadcasters Association's Broadcast Journalist of the Year.

“We are so proud of all these students for their hard work and to bring home this many awards is fantastic,” MBHS Principal Philip Holley said. “We see these results as well as the product of their work on a regular basis but there is truly so much effort that goes into this.”

Spartan 2 News students brought home 29 individual awards from the ASPA convention, including the top broadcast in the state. Touger's award as the Alabama Broadcasters Association's Broadcast Journalist of the Year considers him the top high school broadcaster in the state of Alabama.

Submissions for the overall competition were sent in early January, and consisted of work mostly produced during the first semester. The awards for Mountain Brook in the TV and broadcast categories are as follows:

Broadcast Overall - 1st Place 

Broadcast News Anchors

2nd Place - Leo Godwin & Zach Touger

Sports Anchor

2nd Place - Ty Shotts

Creative Video

1st Place - Zach Touger

2nd Place - Frederic Maldia

Directing

1st Place - Carter Goodson

2nd Place - Zach Touger & Mary Caroline South [for the Miss Olympian Pageant]

Editing

1st Place - Frederic Maldia

Feature Reporting

2nd Place - Frederic Maldia

3rd Place - Leo Godwin

News Reporting

1st Place - Leo Godwin

2nd Place - Zach Touger

3rd Place - Mary Caroline South

Sports Reporting

1st Place - Frederic Maldia

2nd Place - Ty Shotts

3rd Place Carter Goodson

Spot News Coverage

1st Place - Zach Touger

Videography

1st Place - Frederic Maldia

2nd Place - Zach Touger

The "Carry-In" Categories consist of content that was created after the original submission date, during the second semester. 

News Reporting

3rd Place - Zach Touger

Feature Reporting 

2nd Place - Zach Touger

3rd Place - Leo Godwin

Videography

2nd Place - Zach Touger

3rd Place - Frederic Maldia

Directing 

2nd Place - Carter Goodson

News Anchoring 

3rd Place - Leo Godwin & Zach Touger

Additionally, the Sword & Shield News Magazine students brought home 21 individual awards from the convention:

Best Overall Newspaper/Magazine - 2nd Place 

Best Newspaper/Magazine Cover (Spring 2022) - 1st Place

Best Overall Newspaper/Magazine Cover (Fall 2022) - 2nd Place

Newspaper/Magazine Center Spread

1st Place - Alice Estes, Madison Dubrinsky, and Grace Vaughn

2nd Place - Molly Midkiff

3rd Place - Paige Parant

Newspaper/Magazine Entertainment Article

1st Place - Alice Estes

2nd Place - Molly Midkiff

3rd Place - Alice Estes

Newspaper/Magazine Feature Article

1st Place - Alice Estes

2nd Place - Greer Thompson

Newspaper/Magazine Opinion Article

1st Place - Kaiya Leibovitz

2nd Place - Savannah Kumar

3rd Place Greer Thompson

Newspaper/Magazine Sports Article

2nd Place - Jack Earnhardt

Newspaper/Magazine Sports Page Design

1st Place - Jack Earnhardt and Mary Russell Wood

3rd Place - Lilly Odom

Newspaper/Magazine Features Page Design

1st Place - Sophie Grace Rhodes and Grace Vaughn 

Newspaper/Magazine Design

1st Place - Molly Midkiff

Newspaper/Magazine Photography

2nd Place - Sophie Grace Rhodes

Spartan 2 News is led by Brooke Dennis and Kyle Cannon oversees the Sword & Shield. Congratulations to all of these students on their awards and their tremendous effort throughout the year.