Mass Comm. students win 1st place in national contest

A final project resulted in two mass communications students winning a $3,000 scholarship in the National Freedom of Speech PSA contest spring 2012.

Breanna Holmes and Iveon Sprangle teamed up and won first place in the radio category  by submitting a 30-second public service announcement. 

 They competed against more than 200 students from across the country.

Students could either create a television or radio  public service announcement. 

Sprangle, a senior from Goldsboro, N.C., said he gives credit for the opportunity to compete in the competition to Brian Blount, an associate professor in the Mass Communications Department.

During spring semester, Blount shared previous Freedom of Speech PSA entries with his  "Media Presentation" class. 

He assigned his  students to create PSAs as final projects and selected the PSAs to be entered in the competition.

"Because students were excited about performing at their best level, I was very confident that all submissions could be award-winning PSAs," Blount said. 

"When I was contacted by the NAB that Iveon and Breanna had earned first place in the radio category, I became even more proud of their accomplishments."

Students entered as individuals or groups. 

"Once we heard some of the winners, we all thought we could write better than that," Sprangle said. 

"We made it one big competition; we all thought that we were going to win first place."

Sprangle and Holmes will split the $3,000 scholarship that will be sent to Winston-Salem State to be applied to their tuition and fees.

The PSA that Holmes and Sprangle created was about what freedom of speech means and the role it plays in their world.  

Holmes, a junior from Centreville, Va., said in their PSA they spoke about the different ways to express freedom of speech such as singing, rapping and teaching. 

Holmes said they just wanted to encourage people to use their right to speak and teach.

"Iveon and I are both very competitive people. We both had that confidence and mindset that we were going to win," Holmes said. 

"So I think that made us work harder to make a commercial that would stand out and that wouldn't make people turn the channel when they heard it." 

A total of 15 student in themass communications class entered the contest. Six entered individually and the others formed teams.

Holmes and Sprangle traveled to Fort Lauderdale Sept. 20-22 to accept their award at the National Communications Convention. 

The PSAs are streamed on www.freedomofspeechpsa.org.

All the winning entries will be distributed to radio and television stations to air during National Freedom of Speech week, the third week in October. 

The contest was presented by the National Association of Broadcasters Education Foundation and the Broadcast Education Association.

Edited by Pachia Lee and  

Maurika A. Smutherman