1 minute read
Mars’ Hill at the JHM Awards
The Mars’ Hill Team
On Monday, February 13, we received the exciting news that Mars’ Hill had been nominated for two John H. McDonald Awards for Excellence in Student Journalism. The news took us quite by surprise when Sports Editor Julianne Jones brought it up toward the end of our weekly meeting. We raced over to the Canadian University Press (CUP) website and were thrilled to see Mars’ Hill Newspaper listed among the nominees.
Advertisement
The JHM Awards—also known as the “Johnnies”— are presented every year by the CUP, a national cooperative made up of student newspapers all across Canada. Mars’ Hill was nominated alongside many other publications like the University of Alberta’s The Gateway, Toronto Metropolitan University’s The Eyeopener, and the University of British Columbia’s The Ubyssey. We sent in several submissions to the JHM awards in late 2022 from issues of Mars’ Hill published throughout 2022. In the end, two Mars’ Hill articles were shortlisted for awards. Bailey Froese’s piece “I Am the BeReal Man” (featured in volume 27, issue 4) was nominated for the Humour Award. Carter Sawatzy’s piece “Was It Something I Said?” (featured in volume 26, issue 10) was nominated for the Feature Writing Award (under $75k category).
The winners were announced on Saturday, February 18, at the CUP’s annual NASH conference. This year’s conference was hosted by McMaster University’s The Silhouette in Hamilton, Ontario. While we lost the humour award to The Ubyssey, we did win the Feature Writing Award.
“I think this is the biggest honour I’ve received for my writing since my Grade 7 public speaking trophy, so I’m overjoyed,” Bailey said about their nomination. “It’s a sign that I need to keep writing, and if you too would like to receive a similar honour, I encourage you to apply for an editorial position here at Mars’ Hill. We don’t have cookies, but someone brought us cinnamon buns once.”
Those cinnamon buns were courtesy of Student Life early in the Fall semester.
“I’m incredibly honoured to receive the JHM award for feature writing,” said Carter about their win. “Dr. Allyson Jule’s story deserves to be heard, and I’m glad I could do it the justice it deserved and break the news of how TWU is pushing out brilliant, smart, inspiring queer-allied faculty like her. Dr. Jule deserved better. So many faculty at TWU deserve better.”
It is an absolute pleasure to have been considered for the JHM awards this year. We are incredibly thankful to the Canadian University Press for nominating our publication and highlighting the work done by past and present members of Mars’ Hill. We have not taken this lightly, especially considering all of the other excellent and important student journalism being done all across the country.
