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Last week the BluePrint again received a Student Newspaper Online (SNO) Distinguish Site award.  This is the earliest the Blueprint has ever received the award.

“It is a true team effort, so everyone should feel good about the accomplishment,” said Student Life Editor Jarett Taneyhill.

The BluePrint has gotten the award thee years in a row.  Last year the Blueprint received it February 29, this year February 23.

“It’s not easy to earn Distinguished Site honors, but once you do it becomes a standard of excellence to achieve each year.  Now that we have done it a couple times it’s just a matter of keeping it going each year,” said Advisor Mr. Kerry Naylor.

Sports Editor Ethan McGee said every staff member has helped achieve this goal because it took lots of hard work and dedication to put out well-written stories every day.

“Such great effort by the entire staff has helped a ton to become a prestigious site,” said Ethan.

In order to become a Distinguish Site a publication must submit a meet the following standards in six categories:

• Continuous Coverage- Publish three stories about ongoing news and events
• Site Excellence- The site should be customized, not using the initial SNO design
• Story Page Excellence- Submit eight stories that enhance the readers experience
• Excellence in Writing- Three stories must be published on Best of SNO
• Multimedia Excellence- must submit three videos that tell a story and three slideshows
• Audience Engagement- Social media should play apart in your newspaper, 1,000 followers total

Throughout the year the BluePrint has written stories on everything going on throughout the school district, including things happening locally in the Bellwood-Antis community.

“Being on the staff for four years and seeing the transition from being a printed newspaper to an online newspaper has just showed how capable this school is at accomplishing great things,” said senior Phoebe Potter, who has been a member of the staff since her freshman year.

BluePrint used to be called the Hylite, but then changed to BluePrint in 2010 before going online in 2013-2014.  BluePrint’s first Distinguished Site award came in 2015, 365 days after going online.

This year three students have received a Best of SNO award for one their stories: Phoebe Potter with “School Budgets”; Sidney Patterson for “Everyone can enjoy physically activity”; and Ali Wagner, who wrote “This made his entire senior year.”

Only five other publications in the nation have earned the award so far. The race for badges and Distinguished Site honors is open until the end of the school year.

“It feels good to know we were among the first of SNOs online newspapers to achieve this award.  I feel fortunate to be surrounded by such talented writers every morning,” said junior Sidney Patterson, who is the editor of The Lead section.

The Blueprint is planning to submit more stories to try to get more Best of SNO stories throughout the rest of the school year, and has entered several statewide newspaper contests.