Only 50 high school newspapers from around the country have been named finalists in this year’s National Scholastic Press Association Pacemaker competition. One of those finalists is the Image.

The Pacemaker is an annual award give to student newspapers that are deemed the strongest high school publications in the country based on content, writing and design. The judging process went on for three days – July 11 to 13 – as judges, all college newspaper advisers with professional journalism experience,  decided who the finalists would be for 2016. On the first day, they narrowed the whole group of submissions to 266 entries and by the second day it went down 130 entries. Finally on the third day, a list of 50 finalists was released. Each school sends in several examples of their newspaper from the year to be judged.

According to NSPA Contest and Critique coordinator Mariah Keith, the judges were busy from morning and all the way until night. Their thoughts and suggestions will be disclosed to all finalists and winners at an Awards Ceremony at the JEA/NSPA Fall National High School Journalism Convention in Indianapolis on Nov. 12.

In addition to the Lafayette Image, the Messenger from Marquette is also a Finalist.

Several judges commented on how impressed they were with high school journalists around the nation and that many of them are “amazing” storytellers.

“It is a highly prestigious national award that we are nominated for and the Image hasn’t been nominated in ten years.’ I’m really glad we pushed ourselves this past year and published quality content,” Image Editor in Chief Kayley Allen stated.

Last year’s editor in chief was Seth Boester.