Whiz Kid: Lion Staffer Wins Honorable Mention for Video

Lyons Township High School’s student newspaper The Lion is no stranger to awards. Once again, the newspaper has received a top honor—two staff members were recently awarded honorable mentions for stories the paper produced this year.

Lion staff members Will Podlewski of Western Springs and Tom Schoder of La Grange both received honorable mentions to stories they submitted to the National Federation of Press Women’s High School Communications Contest.

“I really think it’s our readers,” said teacher and Lion advisor Jason Scales on the paper’s award winning content. “It really is a student newspaper, not a school newspaper, and LT has been very supportive.”

Another reason that the paper is able to maintain such high standards of quality, is that it’s not easy to get on staff. Just like cut sports at LT, The Lion is a cut extracurricular. Each year only 24 students are chosen for positions on the staff, from a long list of applicants. 

For his submission, Schoder picked a video piece to represent his work on the paper. Schoder’s submission, Chicago Wolves Future Journalist Media Day, can be seen as an example of how things are changing on the paper—and in journalism overall.

“The whole online-thing and video is still new to us,” Schoder said of The Lion branching out into new media. “It’s nice, because we’ve never been able to get an award for that yet.”

For his piece, Schoder attended and filmed a Chicago Wolves practice in Hoffman Estates as part of a trip to the hockey arena for Chicago Wolves Future Journalist Media Day. While there, he captured interviews with players, filmed parts of the practice and edited the video together for the paper’s online edition.

Schoder, who is assistant sports editor for The Lion, agreed that the quality of the paper is representative of the student body as a whole.

“Students see the quality of [the paper] when they read it, and that requires us to keep producing good content,” Schoder said. “I think it’s also a testament to our advisor and his vision for the paper.”

While Schoder said he is not sure a career in journalism is in his future, he’s keeping his options open. Growing up, his sister worked on The Lion and a love of sports and writing drew him to applying for a position as well.

“I really like sports writing and writing columns,” Schoder said of his work at the paper. “But I have other areas I’m interested in studying in college too.”