CCU’s Student Newspaper Staff Brings Home Gold, Silver, Bronze, And A Scholarship In Statewide Competition

Coastal Carolina University’s student newspaper, The Chanticleer, won big at this year’s red-carpet event. A group of CCU student journalists, designers, and advertising representatives attended the South Carolina Press Association (SCPA) Collegiate Meeting and Awards ceremony on March 31 at Clemson University and brought home six awards in a range of areas for coverage during 2022. In addition, one CCU student was awarded the 2023 SCPA Mundy Scholarship.

CCU awards:

• The Chanticleer won third place in the General Excellence category.

• Madison Sharrock won the Mundy Scholarship.

• Sarah Jackson won first place in Advertisement for a Student Health Services ad.

• Megan Wallace and Madison Sharrock won second place in News Story for “Housing Hiccups as Enrollment Increases.”

• Jacob Bashura, Sarah Jackson, and Tiera Rivers won second place in Page One Design for a homecoming special issue titled “Ride the Wave.”

• Jacob Hensley won second place in Video for a news video about a student protest.

• Tiera Rivers won third place in Specialty Page Design for a graphic about CCU’s arboretum.

While The Chanticleer has won individual awards in the past, this year’s event marks the first time a CCU student has won the Mundy Scholarship and the first time on record The Chanticleer has won a general excellence award. The scholarship, awarded annually to a student interested in pursuing a newspaper career, was named after the late Frank R. Mundy, who was the first president of the SCPA Foundation. Visit chanticleernews.com to read the digital newspaper.

Wendy Weinhold, associate professor in the Department of Communication, Media, and Culture, became faculty advisor for The Chanticleer in Spring 2021, when the newspaper resumed publication after the COVID pandemic. Weinhold noted that the awards reflect newspapers published between December 2021 and 2022, under three different Chanticleer editors-in-chief, and that CCU bested much larger universities with long histories of established newspapers and journalism programs, including the University of South Carolina, Clemson University, and College of Charleston, in several of the categories.