Last week I had the pleasure of attending the Texas Intercollegiate Press Association conference in Kerrville, Texas.

The first full day was hectic, since I participated in the Feature Writing and Copy Editing live competitions. That meant I arrived at noon to get my feature writing assignment, and had three hours to find a story and interview sources before reporting back for an hour of supervised writing. During one and a half of those three hours, though, I was tying for second place in the copy editing competition.

The next day, I ran for president of TIPA, and was elected! I’m very excited about the ideas the officers have already started implementing, such as working on a student portion of the TIPA website to encourage discussion between college newspapers year-round. I’m lucky to work with such a wonderful group of officers: Vice President Corey Benson, Secretary Jessica Huseman, and Parliamentarian Nahum Lopez.

Parliamentarian Nahum Lopez, Secretary Jessica Huseman, President Erin Marissa Russell, Vice President Corey Benson

The most memorable part of the TIPA conference, though, was the time I spent hanging out on the Guadalupe River with Brookhaven Courier Editor-in-Chief Kristin McKenzie, Courier Photo Editor Charlie Mills, and Eastfield College’s cartoonist and photographer Cody Richeson. When the sun went down, we found ourselves surrounded by birds making strange little shrieks. We soon realized the birds were bats, and watched them swooping and diving to eat insects from the river’s surface.

At the awards ceremony, Moulin Review, a literary journal I founded at Brookhaven College, was given an honorable mention for an essay by Elena Harding titled “Religious Disagreement” and for a short story by Brit Naylor titled “Hulking Leviathan the Sun.” The Brookhaven Courier was given 14 total awards, including an honorable mention for general excellence for Division 4.

Next year’s TIPA conference will be held in Fort Worth, TX. I know the other officers and I will be working hard in the meantime to make it a good one.