By Chris Hagan
Review Staff Writer
‘If you build it, they will come.?
It’s probably one of those most famous phrases ever spoken in the film, Field of Dreams.
Lake Orion High School’s broadcasting program has a similar saying, ‘If we produce the best newscast we can, the awards will come,? and did they ever.
On Monday, April 20, the broadcasting program and more than 40 Lake Orion High School students received journalistic awards from the Michigan Interscholastic Press Association (MIPA). Additionally, Lake Orion had the most winners out of any school in the state and had the most first place awards of any school in the state.
Schools from all over the state of Michigan submitted pieces of their best work in the areas of video broadcasting, newspaper and yearbook. Students and educators review the best pieces of creative journalism they’ve produced from the beginning of the school year and submit to MIPA.
Taking top honors and winning the prestigious Spartan Award, was Lake Orion’s broadcasting program headed by their Broadcasting Advisor, Roger Smith.
Although Smith oversees the program, his style of teaching is very much hands off. He believes in letting the students make the choices and the decisions while he remains available in case questions come up.
‘I let the leaders [students] decide what they want to enter,? he said. ‘It’s not me driving them saying ‘we need to win this award,? rather it’s them driving themselves.?
The leaders of the WDBC broadcasting program submitted a number of pieces they felt were strong competitors. They chose a live telethon from February 7, in which they partnered with ONTV during a telethon fundraiser event. Also submitted was a broadcast from February 12 in which they highlighted teacher of the year, the percussion team’s performance in a competition, a choir student being ranked best in the state, relay for a life, and an inside look at the custodians and showed how they were under-valued.
This is the fourth year in a row the WDBC broadcasting group has brought home a Spartan. It’s the seventh in eight years overall taking their total to eight in 10 years. The judges who have to score and decide the Spartan winners have no idea of the school’s previous winnings or the amount of individual awards the school may have gotten.
‘We treat the Spartan Award like the Stanley Cup,? Smith said. ‘Every student gets to take it home for a day and go on adventures with it.?
What makes the broadcasting program so special is their commitment to excellence through no other drive than that of the students. Smith acts as an educated advisor, but the students are responsible for the content. The students bear witness to the excellence that is the program and have an internal drive to continue that tradition.
‘The awards are not the direct goal. Our direct goal is to produce the best that we can for our audience every day,? Smith said. The students want to maintain where our program is and want to get better. We want to produce the best we can.?
The Lake Orion Yearbook also took home a gold at MIPA. The Spartan Award is MIPA’s highest honor for a student media outlet. Founded in 1921, MIPA is a nonprofit organization composed of scholastic journalism teachers and publications and their students. MIPA promotes and recognizes excellence in scholastic journalism at all levels of educations.