Photo Credits: Nikki Victory
Pictured (left-to-right): Caden Houser, Kelsey Morris, Emily Tyler, Ava Word, Alice Regalado
The Arka Tech hosted the Arkansas College Media Association Conference, otherwise known as “ACMA,” on Friday, April 10. This conference allows colleges and universities from all over Arkansas to come together to compete on their various journalistic works, while also presenting sessions for all to continue to learn and improve.
Assistant Professor of Journalism, Tommy Mumert, planned and facilitated this event with help from Lecturer of Journalism Christie Keller. The planning committee also included junior Kelsey Morris of Alma, AR, junior Emily Tyler of Searcy, AR, and junior Nikki Victory of Mayflower, AR.
The entrants compete by submitting their works from the previous calendar year to categories such as General Excellence, Newspaper, Yearbook, Television, Magazine, Online, and Radio.
Arkansas Tech’s own brought home eight awards from various students. Those awarded consist of:
A.J. Chauffe – 3rd Place in Online Headlines with “AI Ads: Bad Packaging for a Good School”
Manuel Desiderio – 2nd Place in Online Breaking News with “Power Outage Affects Large Portions of Arkansas Tech University and the Russellville Community”
Caden Houser – 3rd Place in Television Sports Reporting with “Wonder Boys kick off the season with their first exhibition game taking on the UALR Trojans”
Kelsey Morris – 1st Place in Online Topical Reporting/Blogs with “Viva Mexico: LSO Celebrates Hispanic Heritage Month”
Alice Regalado – 2nd Place in Audio Podcast with “Arka Tech Introspect” and Honorable Mention in Audio Podcast with “The Arka Tech Introspect”
Emily Tyler – TV Producer of the Year Runner-Up
Ava Word – 3rd Place in Television News Reporting with “The Piccolo Zoppe Winter Circus is lighting up El Paso”
The event itself kicked off with a welcome from Vice President for Student Affairs, Amy Pennington. It then went into breakout sessions. Attendees had the choice of attending two sessions to start: “From Lens to Leadership: Building a Career in Marketing and Photography” with Independent Case Management’s Melanie Fletcher or “How to Start a Podcast with Purpose” with Arkansas Podcast Collaborative’s Karen Stewart.
The second round of breakout sessions included “Making It Matter: Creative Coverage in a Digital Age” with Jostens’s Mandi Wiley, “Finding Your Niche as a Freelance Writer” with freelance writer Kat Robinson, or “Making the Transition from Reporter to Anchor” with THV11’s Brooke Buckner and KFSM’s Morgan Wrigley.
Lastly, breakout session options were “Ready Set Go – Roles and Etiquette in Film, TV and Festival Productions” with documentary filmmaker Mike Poe, “Finding the Story Behind the Scoreboard” with Fox 16’s Courtney Mims and hawgbeat.com’s Kyle Sutherland, or “Social Media: What Works and What Hurts?” with The Arka Tech’s Kelsey Morris and Nikki Victory.
The conference finished up with a lunch sponsored by Gray Media, represented by Hatton Weeks. Arkansas Pro Chapter of the Society of Professional Journalists Board President, Sarah Campbell-Miller also joined to assist in handing out awards.
For more information on ACMA, visit https://acma1929.wordpress.com/amc/.
