A bright day at state conference

The results are in for the Washington state journalism conference and contest, and it was a banner day for my students -- the best ever. Both the newspaper and yearbook earned Best of Show honors, and one student was named state Journalist of the Year. Five other students earned individual honors in on-site contests.

In addition to the contest, it was also a successful day of learning. I poresented two sessions, which were well-attended by interested and enthusiastic student journalists from around the state. In my first class, I presented on a new topic for me -- creating charts -- and one that I ended up putting together at the last minute despite planning it for months. The second class was a topic I updated from past presentations.

Both used examples of my students' and professionals' work; in particular, I showed off election candidate coverage by my students. I was surprised by the lack of candidate coverage in any of the other schools' papers. None did candidate profiles. I climbed on my soapbox and made sure people knew how important it was that they do such things -- and how easy it was to create the coverage.

It was heartening to see the enthusiasm and also for kids to be scribbling down ideas they got based on my teaching. I told one staff that their paper was ripe for some charts, and they agreed.

One of the best parts of the conference is the chance to see my journalism buddies from around the state. It is nice to touch base with people who do the same job as me in their schools.

The weather for the day was grand, and despite worries of snow on mountain passes, everything was fine. On Friday night, on my way to the state board meeting in Tukwila, I had been making awesome time. Just at the intersection of I-90 and I-405, it started to hail. Then the hail changed from small ice pellets to blueberry-sized snowball-hail, which I had never seen before. Then the lighning started. And of course, it was 4:30 p.m. on Friday. I moved at less than five miles per hour on the on ramp, wishing people would let me and my studded tires through. It took me an hour to go 10 miles.

Next stop: National convention in San Francisco!

-- Issaquah, Wash.