Broadcasting Students Attend National Convention

For four days last week, over 150 students from Carlsbad High School, Aviara Middle School, Calavera Hills Middle School and Valley Middle School attended the world's largest convention exclusively for scholastic broadcast journalism and filmmaking.

Joining 2500 attendees from around the nation, Carlsbad students competed against and attended workshops with the nation's top student journalists.

The Student Television Network Convention is held each year to bring together professionals from the broadcasting profession (CNN and all of the major networks) for a 4-day conference of workshops and competitions.

This year keynote speaker Carl Azuz (CNN) and film producer Frank Marshall (The Sixth Sense, Color Purple, Back to the Future, Jurassic Park) presented to 2500 students who are passionate about careers in the media and film professions.

In competitions, Carlsbad students walked away with over 14 national awards.  For the sixth year, CHSTV (Carlsbad HS) was presented with the nation's top honor, the STN Award of Excellence for Daily, Live News Broadcasting.  CHSTV journalists also won awards in the Convention Recap, Weather News, Standup and Commentary contests.

Valley Middle School students won the coveted "Sweet 16" contest- a grueling 16-hour marathon event that challenges teams to assemble an entire newscast in 16 hours. Valley Middle School students also won awards in the Spot Feature, P.S.A. and Commercial contests.

Aviara Oaks Middle School's program, guided by teacher Deb Wycoff, established itself as a national contender with impressive awards in Anchoring, Music Video and Sweet 16.

Calavera Hills Middle School, lead by teacher Rod Lyon, earned an impressive 2nd place award in the Commercial Contest sponsored by Hurley.  This was the first year Calavera Hills Middle School has attended the convention and their impressive award in this category put them in the national spotlight during closing ceremonies in Los Angeles on Sunday.

The STN convention is held each year in March.  Next year's event will take place in Orlando, Florida.