The Experience staff from Los Medanos College took their talents to the state capital last Thursday for the 58th annual Journalism Association of Community Colleges Convention. The staff had the opportunity to meet more than 480 students and faculty representing 41 community colleges in California.

“I could not ask for a better 2013 State Convention team,” said JACC Events Director, Timi Ross Poeppelman.

JACC is a non-profit educational corporation to community college journalism located in California. It is run by an elected board of directors who represent both students and faculty around the state.

The Experience Editor-in-Chief Peter Costanza great experience for students to get more involved and to learn new things to bring to the paper at LMC.

“We go to different workshops that encourage us to try new things,” said Costanza. “I think the staff really got a lot out of it.”

Students were given the opportunity to attend more than 70 workshops that were led by expert speakers from newspapers, other media companies, universities, community colleges and other government and private organizations.

JACC has tried to make the program as diverse as possible with workshop topics including writing, reporting, photography and graphics.

Competitions were also a big part of JACC, students got to participate in orientations prior to their competitions to get all the help they needed.

According to jacconline.org there was a total of 16 competitions for the On-the-Spot Awards.

Among those winners were two students from LMC, Karl Compton who won 3rd place for editorial car toon and Jesus Chico an honorable mention for Bring-In AD.

Also JACC awarded 6 LMC students for the Publication Contest. Samuel Gonzalez, Costanza, Lisa Cassidy, Laura Crabtree, Jesus Chico, and Audrey Gertz were all recognized for their hard work during last semester.

“It’s always nice to be recognized,” said Costanza.

Gonzlez and Costanza won 3rd place for front page layout, Cassidy and Crabtree won 3rd place for inside page layout, Chico won 3rd place for informational graphic, and Gertz won first place for critical review.

JACC honors promising students each year in its scholarship program, and among those students, Campus Editor for the Experience, Kellie McCown, was awarded her very first scholarship.

McCown had to submit three articles, a letter recommendation from LMC’s Journalism professor Cindy McGrath, and a personal statement.

“JACC believes that I can be a journalist, they’re investing in me,” said McCown. “They believe I have JOSE what it takes to be a journalist and it gives me that much more confidence and it gives me that much more drive to pursue my passion of journalism.”

Also two of the staff writers Dakotah Zabroski and Brendan Cross were a part of history that took place at a softball game between Weber and Sacramento State while participating in a sports writing contest.

Both teams played a doubleheader, which lasted about 9 hours. The second game lasted 15 innings, which made that the longest game in Sacramento State history.

“It was a great experience, I got to meet a lot of cool people,” said Zabroski. “The game was a learning experience of a life-time, I’m glad I was lucky enough to witness some history,” said Cross.

The Experience staff is now working hard to finish the semester strong, with only three more papers to publish, Costanza believes that the staff is reenergized and ready.

“I look forward to implementing new changes to the paper,” said Costanza.