The OU Daily cleaned up Saturday with six first-place honors and two finalists nods in the Society of Professional Journalists Region 8 Mark of Excellence contest in San Antonio.
The winners are:
• “Boren Resigns” by staff: Breaking News Reporting
• “In OU’s Shadow” by Kayla Branch: In-Depth Reporting
• “Baker Mayfield” by Joe Buettner: Sports Writing
• “College Town” by Kayla Branch: Online In-Depth Reporting
• “Heisman History” by Joe Buettner: Online Sports Reporting
• OU Daily: Best All-Around Non-Daily Student Newspaper
The finalists:
• “Confronting History” by Dana Branham: General News Reporting
• OU Daily: Best Affiliated Web Site
The Mark of Excellence awards honor the best in student journalism. First-place regional winners now move on to the national competition. This contest cycle evaluated work published in 2017.
Dana Branham, now a one-year intern at The Dallas Morning News, was editor-in-chief in spring 2017. Jesse Pound, now editor of Crimson Quarterly, was editor-in-chief in fall 2017.
Kayla Branch, currently the Daily’s enterprise editor, will intern with The Oklahoman’s DIG team this summer. Joe Buettner, a December 2017 graduate, is a breaking news reporter for Big 12 DieHards.
* Due to incorrect information originally being provided, an earlier version of this post misstated the number of winners.