The student journalists at Powell High School are always on the prowl for a good story. Their keen sense for hunting down the facts won them the title of 4A/3A All-State Champion Newspaper for 2022-2023. 

Powell High School’s student newspaper The Prowl was awarded the title during the Wyoming High School Student Press Association Convention Nov. 7 at the University of Wyoming. It was the first year the convention was held at the university. Competition for the all-state title was tight with 13 schools in attendance and nearly 200 students, according to a UW press release.

“It [the website] had to be current, your stories couldn’t just be from last year. I think one of the reasons they recognized us as the best is because we’ve been consistently uploading stories,” associate editor Gabby Patterson said. “Every week, we have one going up. And I think it’s our consistency that sets us apart.”

Editor in chief Nathan Feller added that proper coverage is emphasized. This means that they look for a mix of perspectives, quality of flow, grammar and style. Features editor Chase Anderson said that she likes stories to have diversity in perspective, topics and interviewees.

Despite high standards, the journalism class was surprised to win. They didn’t even know that the award existed. In fact, they didn’t know that their adviser Amy Moore had entered their paper for consideration. 

“We didn’t really know there were all-state awards, or anything like that to go with it. So it was kind of a surprise,” Feller said.

Moore said the win was surprising especially since they were surrounded by larger schools.

“So it’s exciting for me, especially when we weren’t sure what the future of this class was at the high school to go down and be among so many other journalism programs and then to take the top spot, it was a high,” Moore said.

Moore said that The Prowl is a student led class with teacher support. Being crowned the best in the state is “approval from the people who do this for a living.” Moore hopes to enter the class into next year’s convention but in the meantime she plans to tap into the experience of her peers. 

“I’m planning on going to the board meeting in Casper in April and I don’t have as much experience as some of them but I’d like to tap into that,” Moore said.

Junior opinion editor Emma Johnson who is next in line for editor in chief, said that the award is proof within the school of years of hard work done by The Prowl students. 

“I think that now that we have an award to really solidify all the work that we’ve put in for the past couple of years, it should do us some good in making sure that we’re able to expand the program and really advertise it to the school,” Johnson said, “Because journalism is something that we all have access to it on our phones, but the actual process of getting the interview, writing the story and sharing it, I think that’s something that we’re able to expose more of with this award.”