Winnie Wilson, Oxford High School senior and student body president, was recently named Mississippi’s High School Journalist of the Year. The current editor-in-chief of the Charger, Oxford High’s student newspaper, has had many roles throughout her four years as a Journalism student, including Staff Writer, Associate Editor, and Entertainment Editor, and has won numerous other awards in design, writing, and photojournalism.

“Winnie has been an exceptional leader, and she is one of the top students I have ever encountered in my career,” said the Charger adviser and OHS Journalism teacher Diala Chaney. “I am so proud of her and all the hard work she has put in as a student journalist for the past four years.”

Wilson will move on to compete against student journalists across the nation in the Journalism Education Association’s High School Journalist of the Year competition, where up to $3,000 in scholarship money will be awarded. As Mississippi’s top scholastic journalist, she will also headline a select group of All-Mississippi honorees at MSPA’s statewide spring convention at the University of Mississippi.

“I am overwhelmed with gratitude to have been selected as the Mississippi Journalist of the Year and for my adviser, Diala Chaney, who has encouraged me to push myself in pursuit of big stories and has always been available and excited to help with any endeavor at any time of the day,” Wilson shared. “Journalism has taught me how to write stories that an audience wants to read. My experiences sharpened my leadership ability as I learned how to meet deadlines and guide a newsroom towards a collective product.”

Winnie will attend the University of Virginia this Fall, majoring in Political Philosophy, Policy & Law, and minoring in Journalism. She also plans to attend law school and hopes to become a political journalist.