Communications junior Julia Horneck and communications senior Starr Courakos are finalists in the National Scholastic Press Association (NSPA) 2015 contest. Their nominations were announced on Sept. 11 and yielded excitement from the communications department.

Courakos has been nominated for the “Picture of the Year” award, specifically for “environmental portrait.” The nominated photo is in Issue 5 of The Muse that accompanied her story, “The Last Stop,” about Dreyfoos alumna Diana Calderon who rode the bus for almost two hours every day to get to school.

“It was such an honor to be nominated for my photo, we work so hard in the Muse and it’s great to see our work recognized nationally,” Courakos said.

Horneck’s nomination is in the “Design of the Year” category, specifically “newsmagazine cover,” for her Issue 3 cover photo of vocal sophomore Hailey Kennedy. Kennedy is featured wearing the mask she wore to school for the majority of her freshman year, due to her recovery from Acute Myeloid Leukemia which she was diagnosed with in January of 2013.

Due to a submission error the photo of Kennedy was originally attributed to communications senior Rowan Bennetti. This error is in the process of being corrected; the photo was taken by Horneck.

“It’s an honor in itself for my work to have even been merely submitted in the first place, and to now think that I’m a nominee for an award is completely surreal,” Horneck said. “Photography has always been something I’ve turned to as a hobby, so it’s quite incredible to see how far it has propelled me.”

The final results of the competition will be released at the NSPA convention on Nov. 12-15.