Orlando Magic

We had a truly great conference experience in Orlando March 19-20 -we attended sessions on "The Future of Journalism," "How to Make Money Blogging" and "Freelancing: Strategies for Paying the Bills." During the Mark of Excellence competition dinner, we worked some Orlando magic and again captured the Region 3 top prize in the In-Depth Online Reporting category with Haley Walker's piece on food waste in the U.S. Phillip Mansfield's piece, "If You Can Make It Here, You Can Make It Anywhere," became second in the Online Feature Reporting category. Haley's piece now moves onto the national competition!

From left, Julie Anderson (vice-president of content and integration, Tribune Interactive), Rick Brunson (University of Central Florida SPJ adviser) and Mike Connelly (executive editor, Sarasota Herald-Tribune).From left, Matt Boyle, Cal Colgan, Lauren Belcher and Kelly Gibbs at the above panel presentation.Hagit Limor, the president-elect of SPJ, delivered the keynote speech.From left, Jenny Andreasson (managing editor, Observer Newspapers), Catie Fry (copy editor, Florida Times-Union), Rachel Hatzipanagos (reporter, South Florida SunSentinel), Melissa Patterson (multimedia journalist and online producer, PalmBeachPost.com) and Steve Mullis (associate editor for online news, Minnesota Public Radio).Cal......and Lauren both won goodies during the Mark of Excellence dinner!