Pierce journalism students brought home 11 awards in eight different categories Saturday night while both campus publications were honored for excellence at the Journalism Association of Community Colleges (JACC) annual conference.

The popular event attracted community colleges from across Southern California and boasted mail-in and on-the-spot competitions in a range of categories including writing, design and photography.

Jason Kandel, veteran NBC reporter, headlined the event as keynote speaker detailing his experience as an investigative reporter covering crime stories in Los Angeles.

Pierce students brought home a number of awards including first place for photo illustration by Bleu Briggs. Rebecca O’Neil placed second for feature story, while Mohammad Djauhari placed second for webcast/broadcast news, and Natalie Miranda placed second for portrait photo.

In the photo essay category Damiesha Williams, Samantha Bravo and David Beytayoub all placed third while Erick Salgado won honorable mention.

Dani Novazski brought home an honorable mention in the editorial category as did Taylor Arthur for photo essay and Cameron Kern was awarded an honorable mention in the on-the-spot critical review.

The student run Roundup newspaper and Bull magazine both won General Excellence awards for their print editions in the Mail-in category and the newspaper was also recognized for its website.

The journalism conference included workshops on disaster reporting, digital storytelling, investigative reporting, college sports pages and social media platforms among other topics.

Presenters included former Pierce professor Amara Aguilar who now teaches at the USC Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism as Associate Professors of Professional Practice.

The next JACC convention is a statewide event March 28-30 hosted in Sacramento.