For the second year, members of the Panthera yearbook staff and the Paradigm newspaper staff attended the Florida Scholastic Press Association's state convention in Tampa, and for the second year, they brought home awards.

After placing in both yearbook and newspaper design in the district competition held in September in Deerfield Beach, the staffs were ready. Twelve students, six from each staff, attended classes and competed April 17-19. Boyd Allen advised both staffs.

Newspaper co-editor-in-chief Taylor Missimer entered a carry-in newspaper double-truck spread upon arrival. Missimer, along with co-editor Kristin Miller, and 2009's co-editors Anna Bezanis and Jessica Hurbon, planned and designed the college acceptance-themed spread. "We devoted numerous hours to make sure what we brought would surpass those competing against us. Luckily, due to the hard work and creative thinking, we succeeded," said Missimer. After being judged, the spread won second in state. First place went to Cypress Bay High School, home of the news staff from MTV's new reality show The Paper.

Kimberly Muirhead, the Panthera staff photographer, also won carry-in awards. She entered three photos (a black-and-white landscape, a color landscape, and a color portrait) and won prizes for all three. Her black-and-white landscape of an old-fashioned train in the mountains of New Hampshire won second place in its category while her color photos both won honorable mention in their respective categories. "I chose these pictures because my work in color and black and white pictorials is the strongest and I wanted to represent that," Muirhead said.

On-the-spot contests were held on the first night of the convention. The yearbook design team of editor-in-chief Jessica Gillespie, Student Life editor Kirsten Rhinesmith, and 2009 co-editors-in-chief Lauren Byers and Ashley Ritter had only an hour and a half to design a sports spread and write copy and captions. "We divided the writing and designing and it helped get everything done," Rhinesmith said. The team won an honorable mention prize for their design.

While the yearbook and newspaper on-the-spot teams competed, so did newspaper sports editor Toni-Ann Miller. "It's not as hard as it sounds," said Miller about her on-the-spot sports writing competition. "One night I listened to a sports photographer talk about his job and the next morning I was asked to write a feature article on the photographer. We had about two hours to organize and write." Miller won third place in the state competition.

Paradigm staff members also attended the Palm Beach Post Awards. Junior Jessica Hurbon won honorable mention for entertainment writing. At Dwyer, Hurbon has her own column, dubbed "Twiggy's Top Ten." The column counts down ten items or events related to articles in the issue. Hurbon has also written a humor piece about dining at gas stations.

Toni-Ann Miller was also recognized by the Palm Beach Post at the Pathfinder Awards as the Minority Journalism Scholarship winner. The scholarship includes two paid summer internships at the Post.

The Panthera yearbook staff received special recognition for their 2008 book, "Wish You Were Here." The book was entered into the Walsworth Gallery of Excellence as a top 5% in the nation yearbook. Walsworth produced extra copies of "Wish You Were Here" and shipped them to high schools around the country. The cover and spreads will be featured in the 2009 Walsworth catalogue. This is the second time Dwyer's yearbook received the honor, the first being the 2004 book. The staff also made every deadline, winning the deadline award. Gillespie is the first editor-in-chief at Dwyer to submit all pages on time since 1999.