On Friday Feb 20, a team of six S&B editors and writers traveled to Minneapolis to attend the 18th annual Best of the Midwest College Newspaper Convention hosted by the Associated Collegiate Press.

At the convention, held at downtown at the Crowne Plaza hotel, the Grinnellians participated in training seminars on topics including design and layout, news coverage of crime and accidents, writing and reporting, and website and multimedia production.

The S&B also captured four awards at the Convention. Former Features Editor Ali Sargent ’10 won 2nd place in the Sports category for her coverage of David Paige’s ’09 attempt to swim a marathon to raise awareness for Charcot-Marie-Tooth syndrome, a neurological disorder that Paige himself has. Sargent documented Paige’s journey from his early struggles with the disease to his summer of intense training and ultimately his epic swim.

Current Features Editor Chloe Moryl ’10 won 3rd place in Sports for her recent profile of the seniors on this year’s men’s basketball team. Moryl tracked the record-breaking performance of the players, considered by many the best recruiting class in years, and documented their plans following graduation.

In the category for Editorial / Commentary, columnist Harsha Sekar ’08 won for his column “Diversity at Grinnell: the great admissions myth,” in which he questioned Grinnell’s level of diversity amongst its student body compared to other peer institutions. Sekar characterized diversity at Grinnell as a myth and questioned the success of the College’s Office of Admissions in attracting students from diverse backgrounds.

The S&B’s website, which recently underwent a full-scale renovation at the hands of the S&B’s recently hired Web Editor Tony Pan ’10, also placed 4th overall. Pan completely redesigned the aesthetics of the website, making it sleeker and easier to navigate and integrated new visual and multimedia elements produced by Photo Editor Ben Brewer ’10 and Graphics Editor Mike Kleine ‘10.