Samantha Stetzer / Winonan

Members of The Winonan’s editing team and reporting staff traded Winona’s quaint scenery for the busy city life of Minneapolis to attend the Associated Collegiate Press (ACP) Best of the Midwest conference.

The conference ran from the morning of Friday, Feb. 29 through the afternoon of Sunday, Jan. 31. The seven conference-goers The Winonan sent attended workshops and keynote speeches about ways to better report and cover for campus news- papers and ways to improve personal reporting. The Winonan also signed up for a critique of the paper as a whole, which proved to be an effective hour with a professor from University of Wiscon- sin – Oshkosh.

The conference ended with Best of Show awards, ranking 231 submissions from colleges within various categories. Sports editor Sam Thiel was awarded 10th place for his sports story recap

of his experience with ACP and the Minnesota Twins this last summer, copy editor Elizabeth Pulanco was awarded ninth place for her features story profiling Winona State student Derek Bute, news reporter Sara Tiradossi was awarded sev- enth place for a news story covering the reasons behind a bone marrow drive on Winona State’s campus, and The Winonan as a whole was award- ed seventh place within the four-year weekly newspaper category.

The students who attended the conference said they left with fresh ideas and new motivations to continue to cover the Winona State campus as best as possible.