Over Spring Break, De Soto High School senior Sophia Templin was announced as the Class 3A/4A Kansas High School Journalist of the Year.

The award is given to exceptional Kansas high school journalists after an extensive selection process. Any high school journalist whose high school belongs to the Kansas Scholastic Press Association can apply for the award.

Contestants submitted an entry consisting of a self anaylitical essay, a resume, three letters of recomendation, samples of their writing from different categories, any multimedia expericence and any outside experience. The entries were then judged by the University of Kansas staff and professional journalists.

“I just decided that I was doing it as a portfolio, not for the contest. I’m really glad I entered it. It was pretty exciting when I found out that I won. I worked on it for probably a good two and a half months,” Templin said. “It was more of a personal accomplishment. I don’t think it’s going to make some huge impact on my life, but it’s the first individual scholarship I’ve won besides softball.”

DHS journalism teacher Michael Sullivan has worked with Templin since she joined The Green Pride staff her sophomore year.

“I’m really excited for her. She’s put a tremendous amount of work and time into becoming a good, young, scholastic journalist, so to have her get this kind of award is a benefit to the whole school,” Sullivan said. “It helps with recognition. Any time a student gets an award at that level, whether its in band, athletics or journalism, it just really helps the program and puts a nice touch that we’re doing some of the things right.”

Templin became interested in the field of journalism her freshman year. After being on the staff, Templin fell in love with journalism and decided she wanted to pursue it as a career.

“At the very end of my sophomore year, I really started to love it,” Templin said. “I loved being a part of the paper, and my junior year I got really involved. I think I probably knew I wanted to get involved with it [further] when I did the KSPA contest the first time. I thought it was really fun.”

After she graduates, Templin plans on majoring in Strategic Communications at the University of Kansas. She has already been accepted into the the William Allen White School of Journalism which is rare for an incoming freshman. After college, she plans on either going into sports journalism, such as athletic media relations, or public relations.

“I love being behind the scenes,” Templin said. “I love knowing everything that is going on with the school and I feel like, even though sometimes people don’t read the stories, I feel like its a good thing to allow students to have the ability of knowing what’s going on around the school.”