Warren Wilson College’s student newspaper, The Echo, recently won Best of Show for Small Campuses – Online News at the annual North Carolina College Media Association (NCCMA) conference. 

NCCMA is an association that supports and encourages college media on public and private university and college campuses across North Carolina.

In addition to winning the prestigious Best of Show, The Echo staff won second place in Cartoons for Eliot Ward’s “Warren Wilson Tinder Scene,” second place in Photography for Ruby Jane Moser’s “Sheep Shearing: Betty Gets a Buzz” and Honorable Mention in Opinion Writing for Al Stone-Gebhardt’s “WWC Queer Community: A Conversation with JoGo.” 

Editor-in-chief Ada Lambert said she is proud of the accomplishment, especially considering the challenges the newspaper has overcome. The Echo was reinstated as a club in 2020, following a four-year hiatus due to the supervisor leaving, a lack of resources and a lack of interest. It became a work crew in 2021.

“I have been lucky enough to be a part of that effort and seeing the milestones we’ve made in just four years is astounding,” Lambert, who is a senior at Warren Wilson, said. “Having the opportunity to go to the conference as a crew is wonderful in itself, but coming home with some awards from a competition that hosts so many schools is really gratifying. It shows us as a crew that our work is being recognized by others, which is an awesome feeling. As a crew, we hope to continue pushing the Echo uphill and see where it takes us.”

The accomplishment is also significant given that the “Small Campuses” category encompasses schools with enrollments of 8,500 and fewer students. That means Warren Wilson, which has an enrollment of around 700 students, was competing against much larger schools like Elon University and UNC Pembroke. 

The Echo covers campus news, events, athletics, broader community news and arts and entertainment. It also provides an outlet for editorials, editorial cartoons, advice columns and podcasts.