The Los Medanos College Experience racked up a total of 12 awards announced at the annual Northern Regional Conference of the Journalism Association of Community Colleges. Awards included two first-place, three second-place, and one third-place awards, among others. The Experience staff also won in General Excellence for the print edition of the paper. 

The awards were distributed at the end of the Oct. 22 conference that featured Oakland Roots co-founder Edreece Arghandiwal as the keynote speaker. There were also many different activities for attendees to participate in, including workshops, round-tables and on-site contests.

The awards ceremony awarded winners in the annual regional publication contest as well as from on-site contests at the event. The LMC Experience won in the publication contest.

Michael Benedian, current editor-in-chief of the paper, won first-place in photo-story essay for the page “A garden of creativity” highlighting the ceramic works of art students. He also won second place in inside page layout, and fourth place in news photo for an image from an Earth Day event.

“It feels gratifying to win something like this. Getting this award just reassures me that I’m doing something right and it also makes a really good bragging tool,” said Benedian.

Perspectives Editor Kai Arellano placed fourth place for his editorial cartoon about the pandemic.

“Winning fourth is huge to me. It just means that my stuff is being recognized now. From here on out, I have a better look at how people view my editorial cartoons or just my art in general,” said Arellano.

Sarina Grossi, former editor-in-chief for the paper, won three individual awards, including second place in critical review, second place in front page layout, and honorable mention in column writing.

Former staff writer, Cara Rieber, won first place in column writing for a pair of opinion articles, one on the case of Kyle Rittenhouse, and the other on the music industry’s double standard for male and female artists. She also won fourth place for a feature photo of LMC students preparing to shoot a video..

Joseph Giddings, former features editor, won third place in sports feature photo for an image of the team catcher practicing.