On Oct. 27, the Precedent, Perry’s Newspaper, returned from the 2014 AIPA Fall Convention with an overflowing amount of awards, including General Excellence for last year’s newspaper staff, which is the equivalent of winning first in state for a sports team.

Senior Paige Coakley, the previous Photo editor and current editor-in-chief, commented that “just to be considered as a top ranking paper is really a great honor,” especially when the standards for the award are considered, including strict attention to detail, correct grammar, and a minimum amount of mistakes.

After hearing that they won, Coakley felt that all of the struggles that she went through truly paid off; from trying to find stories and accurate descriptions to combining all of that information to form a well-written piece.

In addition, there was a large amount of competition for the award, “the big thing for us is that our paper looks extremely professional. We have consistency between papers and format that is always kept really clean,” commented senior Amanda Lee, last year’s Feature editor and current Managing editor.

“I love being part of a group that is collective and different in every sense of the way,” said Coakley when mentioning the diverse group that helped put this newspaper together including Lee, junior Emma Fernandez  – previous staff writer and current Sports editor, and graduated Lindsey Floyd- previous Opinion editor.

Expectations have been raised for this year’s staff; however, the focus will not stray from the importance of dedication, and  “not striving for awards, but striving for excellence,” newspaper adviser and English teacher Damien Tippet stated.

Those expectations are not only held by Tippett, but also the staff members.

“This upcoming year I want to win. I want people to know Perry High School newspaper staff as a [group] who will publish a quality newspaper and win a state award every year,” said Fernandez.

With the new talent and the knowledge that success is possible, this year’s staff has added confidence and the readiness to accomplish the task at hand: publishing an informative, captivating newspaper.