JEA showed a little love for Shawnee Mission South High School’s journalism adviser Thursday. Tucker Love was one of eight advisers named 2020 Rising Stars.
The Journalism Education Association will honor the eight journalism teachers at the Fall JEA/NSPA National High School Journalism Convention, Nov. 19-20. Rising Star awards recognize educators in their first five years of advising who have shown dedication and success in scholastic journalism.
This is Love’s third year teaching at Shawnee Mission South High School in Overland Park, Kansas. He advises The Patriot, the student newspaper and the Heritage, the school yearbook. Both staffs have received numerous individual and publication awards, including 2019 All-Kansas Yearbook and 2020 All-Kansas News Website from the Kansas Scholastic Press Association. In 2019, both publications received First Class critique ratings from the National Scholastic Press Association and Gold Medalist designations from the Columbia Scholastic Press Association.
“My greatest joy has been the experience of watching my students succeed,” Tucker said. "That happens in so many different ways, but I love the days when the print issue of the newspaper arrives. I love the day the yearbook shows up and the staff have the chance to see their hard work published. This culminating moment allows students to get that taste of real-world connection. Seeing your photos or your stories or your designs printed in a physical space can be such a powerful moment. Having your content published on the news website or tweeted and seen and shared by hundreds of followers can have the same impact. Students can see meaning in their work when it takes on a purpose in the space they exist in, and I love being there to watch them experience that for the first or 10th time.”
Shawnee Mission South High School adviser Tucker Love was recently named a 2020 Rising Star. JEA will honor Love and seven other advisers at the Fall JEA/NSPA National High School Journalism Convention, Nov. 19-20. Photo by Devyn D’Amato
The 2020 Rising Stars are Brit Crew, Creekview High School, Carrollton, Texas; Patty Gomez, Pine Crest School, Fort Lauderdale, Florida; Cody Terrance Harrell, CJE, East Lansing (Michigan) High School; Christina Levinson, Bear River High School, Grass Valley, California; Tucker Love, Shawnee Mission South High School, Overland Park, Kansas; Heather Rice, CJE, One School of the Arts, Longwood, Florida; Julia Walker, Olathe (Kansas) West High School, and Shanon Woolf, McIntosh High School, Peachtree City, Georgia.
