On Friday, March 26, 2021, the Texas Intercollegiate Press Association announced the winners during their 2021 convention over Zoom. TIPA is an association that lets students submit their media work, to then be looked over and judged by a professional panel. Students involved in organizations such as The Prairie News, Buffalo Advertising and 1910 PR submitted work that they completed during the spring and fall 2020 semesters. WTAMU students won 10 awards overall with senior broadcast journalism major, Alyssa Gonzales winning 5 of them.

“I typically don’t write my stories like ‘oh, this will be a great submission for TIPA,’ I kind of just, you know, focus on the direction I wanna take it, find my sources and write them,” Gonzales said. “When it’s time for submission I go through and I find the stories that I feel I did my best on.”

1910 PR also won an award for their advertising campaign and received an honorable mention for their blog. Senior advertising public relations major Ellie Boyett worked alongside Mason Curry for their advertising campaign with the Potter Randall County Medical Society Alliance.

“ I was actually really surprised about this award. I had no idea that me and Mason’s project had been submitted, so it was definitely a surprise when I found out that we won too,” Boyett said. “ But I was very happy to see the work that I put into this campaign and the work that I put in 1910 PR get recognized, especially among so many other great project submissions.”

Despite COVID-19 impacting the process of these projects, head of the Department of Communication and 1910 PR advisor, Dr. Emily Kinsky says that COVID-19 actually provided an opportunity for Boyett and Curry.

“So, COVID impacted how we normally meet and take care of our clients, but it did not impact client work. Client work was done and it was done well. It just, we had to come up with some different methods and different procedures,” Kinsky said. “The Potter Randall County, I don’t think would’ve contacted us if it weren’t for COVID. So that one was because of COVID.”

The entire list of the 2021 TIPA contest awards can be found on their official website.