The Hub@TTU Is Officially The Best!

Well, technically. Last Saturday The Hub sent a few staff members down to League City, Texas to the Society of Professional Journalism Conference for Region 8. Needless to say, it was an award-winning trip, but that’s not how it started.

Friday

1:50 p.m.: Abigail Arroyos, Alicia Keene, and I were all on the same flight leaving Lubbock en route to Houston Hobby. Evan Dixon also accompanied us on the trip, but he took an earlier flight. Abigail, Alicia and I were prepping and packing for our 4:00 p.m. flight while Evan would meet us there with the rental car.

2:30 p.m.: I received a text message from Southwest Airlines, “Your flight has been delayed until 5:30.” Oh wow. What were we to do in that spare time to get to the airport? Chimy’s sounded like a cure-all right about then.

4:00 p.m.: We were officially off to the airport in good spirits with high hopes of taking home awards over the weekend. The Hub@TTU was nominated in four categories: Best Independent Online Student Publication (The entire Hub staff), Online In-Depth Reporting (Alicia Keene, Abigail Arroyos and Evan Dixon for “Asbestos on Campus”) , Online Feature Reporting (Sydney Holmes for “Watch me bare my soul and have a Panic Attack.”, and Online News Reporting (Claudia Tristán for “Surviving Rape at Texas Tech”).

4:50 p.m.: I receive another text message saying our flight has been delayed until 5:50. Fine, Fine. Airports have delays all of the time.

5:55 p.m.: We’re finally up in the air and on our way to Dallas. In order to get to Houston Hobby, one must always stop in D-Town or Austin in order to make it to their final destination, aka Houston.

7ish p.m.: Our plane has landed in Dallas. Evan has made it to Houston by now and is looking for things to do. As Abigail, Alicia and I wait anxiously for the next set of passengers to join us, we notice this is taking forever. Like, 40 minutes past when we were supposed to leave forever. At last, we are allowed to get off of the plane to charge our phones and acquire nourishment from food chains at the airport. “GIVE ME FOOD OR GIVE ME DEATH,” I thought to myself.

7:45 p.m.: Random thought: “Are we ever going to make it to Houston? What if we have to spend the night? What if I implode from exhaustion and anxiety. Oh snap, it’s finally time to go!”

8:00 p.m.: Our Dallas flight is finally up in the air. We witness a cool lightning show as we approach Houston.

10:15ish p.m.: We finally land and Evan picks us up.

So, that was our quest to get to this conference — but it was well worth the wait.

From left to right: Lauren Estlinbaum, Alicia Keene, Abigail Arroyos, and Evan Dixon.

Saturday

The SPJ Region 8 Conference was hosted at the South Shore Harbor Resort. We were all uber-excited to meet other journalists from around the Oklahoma and Texas region. We checked in, got some breakfast complimentary of the resort, and took a look at what was in store for the day. There were four sections or “salons” with a break in the middle for lunch and the award ceremony.

The salons included topics on energy reporting, the dangers of social media, lessons in crisis reporting, religion reporting, and immigration reporting. Our group personally enjoyed hearing from the keynote speaker the most. Kevin Dale, news director of The Denver Post, talked about how important it is to be accurate in today’s instant-obsession. The Post has won four Pulitzers in the past four years, and their most impactful coverage was for the Aurora theater shooting.

The Hub staff does Kemah Boardwalk.

Dale explained that while other local newspapers in Colorado shared facts that were not true in their reports, The Post waited until every last detail was accurate and they had a source to back them up. It was reassuring to hear it’s acceptable to be second or third when reporting a story, as long as your facts are accurate and compelling. The way Dale’s staff went about telling the story of the Aurora theater shooting was different, fresh, and insightful.

After Dale’s talk, SPJ Region 8 announced the awards for students and schools who were either nominated or won an award for Region 8. Sydney Holme’s piece got third, Claudia Tristán’s got second, Abigail Arroyos, Alicia Keene and Evan Dixon got second, and The Hub won Best Independent Online Student Publication overall. Needless to say, we were all so excited and honored to win the title.

After the awards were over, we finished our day at the conference and then proceeded to the Kemah Boardwalk. I grew up in the Houston area, so I am not a stranger under any circumstances to this local attraction. Kemah Boardwalk looks out onto the water and is covered by shops, restaurants, and amusement rides and games. It was an awesome ending to an even more perfect day.

The Hub would like to thank all of our readers and The College of Media and Communication and Texas Tech for helping us get to where we are. This is such a big accomplishment for us and we will only strive to do better work and bring even more exciting content for all of you.