It was a huge night for the College of Saint Benedict and Saint John’s University at the 14th annual Student Production Awards hosted by the Upper Midwest Regional Emmy Chapter of the National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences Friday night at the DoubleTree Hilton Minneapolis South in Bloomington.
In all, a record-setting four recipients from CSB and SJU brought home a Crystal Pillar Award in their respective categories.
The winners were as follows:
- In the headline news category, Johnnie Bennie Campus News: led by Olivia Smith, Chloe Moore and Gabe Evenocheck.
- In the non-fiction category, Extending the Link for its 2024 documentary “¿Dónde Vive?” (English translation ‘Where does it live?’): led by Annika Gothmann, Maeve Miley, Emily Cavanaugh, Lydia Mattern, with videography and editing by Nick McGrane and Ben Hissam and editing by Chenxu Yu.
- In the director category, Yu for his work “See You One Last Time.”
- In the photographer category, Carter Jostock for his “2024 Football Cinematography Reel.”
A total of eight nominees in all came from CSB and SJU.
“Which in itself is a new record,” said Ethan Wittrock, instructional technologist at CSB and SJU and the advisor to Johnnie Bennie Media.
“It points to the fact that this type of creative work is happening all across these campuses,” he continued. “If you look at the winners, it wasn’t just one specific category or one specific organization. It was Johnnie Bennie Media (which won its first award as a news program), it was Extending the Link and two independents as well.
“You had representation from a lot of different areas and that’s what makes it really exciting.”