DeKALB – The Northern Star won 14 awards from the 2023 Illinois College Press Association. ICPA awards were distributed to Illinois student-run newspapers in 36 categories of competition.

Of those winnings, the Northern Star placed first five times, second twice, third twice and received five honorable mentions.

The Northern Staff was awarded first place for the special supplement category (special print editions), newsletter (TLDR) and general excellence (print).

Individual first-place winners include Philip Arduini for column and Eddie Drinkwine for news story.

Second-place winners were Skyler Kisellus for sports column and Mingda Wu for general news photo.

Third-place wins go to Madeline Schuster for editorial cartoon and Daija Hammonds for headline writing.

Honorable mentions include Caleb Johnson for critical review, Wes Sanderson for news story, James Krause for sports column, Khavon Thomas for sports photo and Sean Reed and Skyler Kisellus for sports podcast (All-Star).

“I think with us getting General Excellence in print and then also getting first place for our newsletter – TLDR – I think it was a nice wrap-up with prints since we killed it last spring,” said Daija Hammonds, managing editor of the Northern Star.

Hammonds said while there is much for the Northern Star to celebrate, there is room for improvement.

“I think we can grow with our website design,” Hammonds said. “Because we are all digital, we can amp it up a little bit to hopefully place (in the website category) next year.”

Correction: This report has been changed to reflect the Northern Star won five first-place awards, and Skyler Kisellus won second place for sports column.