VISUAL CATEGORIES 

Students/teams that placed in the Regional Contest are now eligible to compete in the State Contest. Only those students/teams that qualified may compete in the State Contest. No substitutions are allowed.

There are new prompts for the state contest for visual contests so please be sure you follow those instructions in creating your state entries. Judges will use the same rubrics from the regional contest to assess the state entries. Rubrics are at the bottom of each prompt.

To help you prepare for this new contest, check out these helpful judges’ comments from the regional contest entries. It should give you advice and guidance as you prepare for state.

Entry forms are now closed. RESULTS REVEALED MAY 3, 2025!

A live list of entries as they are turned is at this link.

• Category V01: Academics Photography
• Category V02: Advertising Design
• Category V03: Digital Illustration
• Category V04: Editorial Cartoon
• Category V05: Headline Writing & Design
• Category V06: Infographic Design
• Category V07: Multimedia Storytelling 
• Category V08: News Page Design
• Category V09: Social Media
• Category V10: Sports Action Photography
• Category V11: Sports Feature Photography
• Category V12: Student Life Photography
• Category V13: Video News 
• Category V14: Video PSA
• Category V15: Video Sports Promo 
• Category V16: Yearbook Design
• Category V17: Yearbook Theme & Graphics 

Note: These contests are subject to KSPA’s policy on Artificial Intelligence.

SUBMISSION DEADLINE IS THURSDAY, APRIL 3 by 5 p.m.

WRITING CONTESTS

Students who placed in the Regional Writing Contest are now eligible to compete in the State Writing Contest. Only those students who qualified may compete in the State Contest. No substitutions are allowed.

Judges will use the same rubrics from the regional contest to assess the state entries. Rubrics will be at the bottom of each prompt.

To help you prepare for this new contest, check out these helpful judges’ comments from the regional contest entries. It should give you advice and guidance as you prepare for state.

The State Writing Contest will once again require advisers to proctor the contests during the contest window. All schools must comply with the KSPA Artificial Intelligence Policy. That policy, approved by the KSPA board in 2023, requires students to complete their entire writing contest entry in a proctored location. This proctored location will ensure that students do not have access to artificial intelligence and that they do not use it to create their writing entry. Students will have 65 minutes to write their entry and then will turn it into a Google Form. Students should type their story in a Google Doc, Word document or other word-processing program and can use the built-in spelling and grammar check to help in the proofreading process. AI, like ChatGPT or other software that could write the entire story for the student, is not allowed.

Writing Contest Window: Monday, April 7 at 7 a.m. – Thursday, April 10 at 5 p.m.

A link to submit your entry is on each prompt.

A live list of entries as they are turned is at this link.

• Category W1: Copyediting 
• Category W2: Newspaper Sports Writing
• Category W3: Yearbook Copy
• Category W4: Feature Writing
• Category W5: News Writing
• Category W6: Cutline/Caption Writing
• Category W7: Editorial Writing
• Category W8: Yearbook Sports Writing
• Category W9: Review Writing

DEADLINE FOR WRITING ENTRIES IS THURSDAY, APRIL 10 at 5 p.m.

For guidance, check out recommendations from judges & examples of contest winners here:
Google Slides Link

State results and sweepstakes winners will be announced by Saturday, May 3. In a change of tradition, this year’s State Celebration will be for advisers and friends of KSPA only and will consist of a breakfast and awards presentation from 9:30 a.m.-11:30 a.m. on Saturday, May 3, in the Memorial Union at the University of Kansas. 

IMPORTANT DATES:

Monday, March 31
State Contest registration due

Thursday, April 3 by 5 p.m.:
State visual entries due 
Submit here

Monday, April 7 – Thursday, April 10
State writing contest prompts available

Thursday, April 10 by 5 p.m.:
State writing entries due

Friday, April 18:
Registration due for the State Celebration, an advisers-only breakfast and awards ceremony on Saturday, May 3.

Registration deadline:

The deadline for contest registration is Monday, March 31, 2025 

Entry limit:

Only students/teams that qualified for the State Contest can participate. No substitutions allowed.

Fees & Costs:

The fee for each entry is $15.

• Payment may be made online by credit card at the time of registration.
• For payment by check, please make checks payable to KSPA sent to our address (please alert your bookkeeper of the correct KSPA address below):
  • Kansas Scholastic Press Association
    1435 Jayhawk Boulevard
    Stauffer Flint Hall
    Lawrence, KS 66045

No refunds can be issued for unused registrations.

Have questions?

Email the KSPA office administrator, Haylee Hedge, at staff@kspaonline.org

How do the judges evaluate entries?

Students can reference the rubrics to see the qualities that judges usually seek. Each rubric is also included on each contest prompt as well.

Number of awards

KSPA urges all judges in all categories and classifications to award 1st, 2nd, 3rd, 4th, 5th and 6th place.

However, some judges will decide to award fewer than six places. In the past, some judges have cited these reasons for not awarding all six placings:

• a small number of entries in a specific category
• entries that did not follow instructions/prompt
• lack of quality from entries

This circumstance — with fewer than six award winners — is more common in Regional Contests than the State Contest. Advisers should be aware of this possibility. The KSPA staff will follow up with judges to request they submit six award winners unless one of the bullet points above applies.

State Sweepstakes 

Students/teams that place earn points for their school in the State Sweepstakes competition. First place = 6 points, second place = 5 points, third place = 4 points, fourth place = 3 points, fifth place = 2 points, sixth place = 1 point. Although classifications compete in combined competitions (1A/2A, 3A/4A, 5A/6A), KSPA awards separate sweepstakes for each classification (1A, 2A, 3A, 4A, 5A, 6A). A list of sweepstakes winners from past years can be found in our Simply Better pages, which showcases the top work from each state competition as well as the sweepstakes award winners. 

The use of artificial intelligence is prohibited in all KSPA contests. KSPA’s goals remain the same: encouraging learning, providing feedback and developing journalists through competitions. The use of artificial intelligence by competitors would damage these goals.

To protect the integrity of KSPA contests, we require these two protocols:

1. Student and adviser acknowledgment that Artificial Intelligence will not be used for both digital and written contest entries
2. Adult proctoring/supervision of students while they compete in writing contest 

Click here to read KSPA’s AI policy.

Past regional & state prompts

Want a preview of what the Writing Category prompts will be like? Want a classroom activity for your students? Need an emergency lesson plan?

KSPA has a page of prompts from previous state and regional contests for you. We will continue to add to the collection as we search through our archives. 

ONE IMPORTANT NOTE: please notice that some of the rules and formats for the contests have changed (most recently for the News Page Design Contest). Be sure to read all directions for this year’s contest for guidance.

Simply Better

Check out our “Simply Better” page, a showcase of the award-winning entries from previous Regional and State competitions. These examples can be used as classroom examples for students who will compete in State.