photo by: Contributed photos

Left image: Staff members of Lawrence High School's newspaper The Budget pose on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, D.C., on Friday, Nov. 22, 2019. While in D.C., the paper was awarded the National Scholastic Press Association's 2019 Pacemaker Award, which is considered the most prestigious award for student journalists. Right image: A cover of the The Budget's March 2019 issue, which was one of five issues submitted for the competition by the paper.

Lawrence High School’s student newspaper has been nationally recognized once again.

The National Scholastic Press Association last month awarded the newspaper, The Budget, with the Pacemaker Award, according to the organization’s website. The Pacemaker is considered to be the most prestigious award for student journalists. The Budget was one of 19 high school newspapers in the country to receive the honor. The awards were announced during the NSPA’s national convention in Washington, D.C., on Nov. 23.

The LHS program is no stranger to the award, as it won a Pacemaker in 2017 and was a finalist for the award in 2018.

“The Pacemaker is the big one to win,” Barbara Tholen, LHS’s faculty adviser for the paper, told the Journal-World Thursday. “It’s been a pretty extraordinary three-year run for them.”

Along with the paper’s overall award, LHS students were named finalists in 11 individual awards.

The 2019 staff was led by editors-in-chief Macy Landes, Gary Schmidt and Connor Schmaus; photo editor Emily Kruse; design editors Sami Turner and Anna Parnell; and opinion editor Nikki Aqui, according to a Lawrence school district news release.

Turner, a senior at LHS and current editor-in-chief of the paper, said she was happy for the paper to be recognized again. However, she said the paper’s staff didn’t report the news to win awards.

“Mrs. Tholen advises us amazingly and encourages us to test the boundaries and ask the hard questions,” Turner said. “We just report the way we think things should be reported.”

Daniel Davidson, who is also a senior and is the paper’s online editor-in-chief, said he treated The Budget as if it were any other serious news publication. He said that mindset helped to maintain The Budget’s already established high standard, which sometimes leads to awards such as the Pacemaker.

“When we do win awards, I don’t really think much of it. I think well, of course, we do deserve that,” he said with a laugh.

For the 2019 award, The Budget submitted five issues for critique. When the paper was named as a finalist for the award, an official for the competition said the finalists all demonstrated excellence in key areas of journalism, including news coverage, writing, editing, design and photography.

“The best newspapers and news magazines delivered relevant coverage that resonated with student readers and the school community with appropriate sourcing, abundant student quotes and consistent journalistic style,” said Gary Lundgren, associate director and coordinator of the competition.

Two other Kansas high school newspapers — The Express of Blue Valley Northwest High School and The Harbinger of Shawnee Mission East High School — were also among the 19 papers to receive the national honor.