By Sara Pintilie/reporter

Members of The Collegian won distinguished awards at the Texas Intercollegiate Press Association convention March 21-24 in San Antonio.

TIPA holds the convention annually and provides live competitions as well as previously published contests.

The live contests range from print to radio broadcasting. These competitions have students from approximately 54 two-year and four-year colleges and universities in Texas competing in one open division.

Charity Montieth, managing editor of The Collegian, won first in the live competition in print news writing and third in editorial writing.

“ Call me corny, but after the initial shock wore off, I almost cried,” she said. “I was so grateful. Being in school has placed a huge financial strain on my family, but winning sort of validated everything. [It is] kind of like all the sacrifices and hard work really are starting to pay off.”

Susan Tallant, editor-in-chief of The Collegian, won the Texas Community College Journalist of the Year award, which includes an eight-week paid internship.

“ I still cannot believe I won Journalist of the Year,” Tallant said. “The internship was the one thing I wanted the most. I felt like I had just won the lottery when they called my name.”

Tallant will spend most of her summer at the Corpus Christi Caller-Times, working with the editor who selected her for the honor.

Along with the internship, Tallant won the Jeff Henderson Scholarship for Journalism Excellence at the awards banquet.

Tallant and Montieth also will be recognized April 13 with scholarships from the Society for Professional Journalists.

In the previously published contests, The Collegian staff received seven awards and individual students took home four awards in Division Two, which consists of about 16 colleges—the largest two-year colleges and four-year universities that do not publish daily newspapers.

Among the awards, The Collegian staff received first place for single-subject presentation for last spring’s governor’s race coverage, second for front page design and honorable mention for overall excellence.

“ The page screamed ‘read me!’ with a bold headline and lead story that dominated the page,” the judges of the competition said about The Collegian’s front page.

“ The color is sharp and the staff-created illustration hits the mark.”

Daniel Worthington, Sara Pintilie and Keith Ludwick also won second place awards for non photo-illustration, critical review and news photo, respectively. Bitty Reilly received honorable mention for sports feature.

The paper placed fifth in sweepstakes behind Texas State University, University of Texas-El Paso, Stephen F, Austin University and Sam Houston State University.

Along with the competitions, TIPA provides a day of sessions, a series of mini-classes presented by professional journalists. Guests included staff members of the San Antonio Express-News and other local media outlets.

“ I think my favorite was the one presented by Elaine Wolff and Gilbert Garcia of the San Antonio Current,” Montieth said.

“ They really talked about different ways to approach a basic story, and I hope to incorporate their tips into my writing.”

Tallant said she also enjoyed that session.

“ Weekly news is never late-breaking news,” she said. “But this class taught us how to keep a news story fresh and find different angles.”