Chesterton High School Sandscript features editor senior Micheala Sosby has been named the Indiana High School Press Association's (IHSPA) State Student Journalist of the Year at the IHSPA's First Amendment Symposium at the Statehouse in Indianapolis.

Topping very-qualified peers from Bloomington South, Crown Point, Floyd Central, Lawrence Central, and Portage high schools, Sosby was honored with a plaque and a $500.00 scholarship by IHSPA director Diana Hadley. As the state’s leading high school journalist, she now moves on to national Journalism Education Association (JEA)/National Scholastic Press Association (NSPA) competition.

Sosby, a member of Quill and Scroll (IHSHSJ), has been a staffer of the Sandscript her entire high school career, also serving as a reporter, news editor, and editor-in-chief. For the competition, she assembled a portfolio representing her body of high school journalistic work, and not only did its comprehensive excellence win her IHSPA honors, but also a $1500.00 scholarship presented by Karen Braeckel of the Hoosier State Press Association.

Sosby will attend the University of Missouri-Columbia in August, majoring in journalism-convergence television reporting.

Also at this First Amendment Symposium, Sandscript news editor and IHSPA student officer sophomore Lauren Lecy was the initial student speaker, commenting on high school speech rights in light of the 1969 Tinker v. Des Moines Independent Community School District case in which the Supreme Court wrote in part that students “do not shed their constitutional rights when they enter the school house door.”

English/journalism teacher John Hayduk is their faculty advisor.