NSPA honors innovation

Three scholastic media programs named Pacemakers

April 18, 2026

MINNEAPOLIS — Honoring the nation’s best, the National Scholastic Press Association named three high school student media programs as Innovation Pacemaker winners.

The innovation winners, plus the 2026 Online Pacemaker, 2025 Yearbook Pacemaker and 2025 Literary Arts Magazine Pacemakers winners, were announced during the closing awards ceremony of the JEA/NSPA Spring National High School Journalism Convention, on April 18.

“The Pacemaker is the association’s preeminent award,” Executive Director Laura Widmer said. “NSPA is honored to recognize the best of the best.”

The NSPA Pacemaker, one of the oldest awards for scholastic journalism, has a rich tradition. The association started presenting the prestigious award to high school newspapers soon after the organization was founded in 1921. Throughout the years, yearbooks, magazines, online sites and broadcast programs were added to the competition.

The Innovation Pacemaker is designed to encourage out-of-the-box thinking and reward student media for the courage to take chances to improve service to their customers, readers and communities.

“Student media is rapidly changing and top programs are finding innovative ways to deliver content to their readers while building unified and converged teams,” associate director Gary Lundgren said. “Print is now just one component — there is far more to a successful student media program than publishing the campus newspaper and yearbook.”

2025 Spring convention awards

2026 Innovation Pacemaker
2025 Literary Arts Magazine Pacemaker
2026 Online Pacemaker
2025 Yearbook Pacemaker

Individual Best of Show
Staff Best of Show

Pacemaker finalists

2026 Innovation Pacemaker finalists
2025 Literary Arts Magazine Pacemaker finalists
2026 Online Pacemaker finalists
2025 Yearbook Pacemaker finalists

The Communicator
Community High School
Ann Arbor, Michigan
Student Leadership: Della Bank, Kennedy McDonald, Sadie Palay, Izzy Santiago, Andrea Skerlos
Adviser: Tracy Anderson

LHS Publications
Liberty High School
Lake Saint Louis, Missouri
Student Leadership: Emily Nguyen, Will Nolan
Adviser: Jonathan Hall

KCBY Español
Coppell High School
Coppell, Texas
Student Leadership: Aaron Montes, Hemi Riojas
Advisers: Irma Lazos-Kennedy, Stephen Jones