With creativity and style, 2021-22 yearbook staffs told their stories of a school year in which the rituals, milestones and traditions of high school life were celebrated precisely because they had become part of normal life once again. In recognition of that work, the IJEA is proud to announce the winners of our 2022 Yearbook Contest!

And we have a new contest address! Due to the retirement of longtime contest coordinator Dr. Sally Renaud, EIU will no longer be our yearbook home. Instead, the new mail-in destination for participating yearbooks will be Regina Dominican High School in Wilmette. The postmark deadline is Nov. 15, 2022. Good luck to all!

We honored our 2022 All-State Journalism Team, Illinois Journalist of the Year and IJOY runner-up as well as former IJEA Executive Director Dr. Sally Renaud on June 4 in Springfield. Thank you to the Illinois Press Foundation for making this event possible and to film critic Matt Fagerholm for serving as our keynote speaker. Congrats to all!

The IJEA is proud to announce the members of the 2022 All-State Journalism Team. The 13 students selected for this year's honor were nominated by their advisers in recognition of the indispensable contributions they made to their publications during 2021-22. Congratulations to these MVPs who rose to the occasion in yet another challenging year!

With a pandemic affecting nearly every aspect of their lives, Illinois high school journalists truly rose to the occasion during the 12 months covered by our 2022 competition. Overcoming one challenge after another, these students made us proud to be associated with Illinois scholastic journalism!

Olivia Kim, a senior at Prospect High School, has been named the 2022 Illinois Journalist of the Year. She is IJEA’s 33rd Journalist of the Year, and she will now compete for national honors against the top high school journalists from other states. Congratulations to Olivia and her adviser, Jason Block!

We have joined with BetterBNC to provide a new and more efficient platform for submitting contest entries. The new platform for the IJEA Newspaper & Digital News Media Contest is now up and running! The entry deadline is Friday, March 25. Good luck to all!

Using every ounce of their resourcefulness and creativity, 2020-21 high school yearbook staffs in Illinois told powerful stories of a school year few will forget. In recognition of that work, the IJEA is proud to announce the winners of our 2021 Yearbook Contest!

Although many things about our annual newspaper competition will remain the same, we will be partnering with BetterBNC to provide a new and more efficient platform for submitting entries. Check inside for more info. (UPDATE: The new contest platform is up and running! Check inside for the link. Thank you, IJEA members!)

Prospect High's Jason Block recently made the transition from offering traditional journalistic writing courses to implementing a multimedia communication model. The result has been invigorating as students learn how to tell stories in multiple ways.

Although IJEA’s fall conference was canceled this year, a free virtual version of our popular write-off contest was held in late October — and the results are in. Congratulations to our winners in news writing, feature writing and editorial writing!

The Illinois Journalism Education Association's 2021 Fall Conference, originally scheduled for Friday, Sept. 17, at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, has been canceled due to complications related to COVID. Check inside for IJEA President John Gonczy's statement explaining the reasons for the decision.