Salem College’s Newspaper Staff Earns 2025 Best of Show Award

The staff of The Salemite, Salem College’s newspaper, was awarded the 2025 Best of Show award in the small campus newspaper category (for schools with 8,500 or fewer students) by the North Carolina College Media Conference at Elon University. 

T. Sharee Fowler, PhD, faculty advisor for The Salemite, reflected on the significance of the award: “While Salem students have previously earned recognition in individual categories such as literary magazine content (2013) and newspaper design (2016), this marks the first time our students have received an overall Best of Show award. 

The honor is the result of a remarkable student-led revival of the newspaper in 2025 by Salem College students Clare Buchanan, Sara Vargas, Isabella Wyatt, Samantha Hogsett, and Venus Radoslovich. These students “took the initiative to begin rebuilding The Salemite from the ground up after its four-year post-COVID dormancy,” Dr. Fowler said. The Salemite’s staff has since grown to 35 students, making it one of the largest student organizations on campus.

“It has been one of the great honors of my time as a Salem faculty member to walk alongside these exceptional students as they meaningfully contribute to our campus culture and champion the free press in a time when it has never been more important. As a Salem alum, I have never been more grateful and proud,” said Dr. Fowler. 

The entire Salem community celebrates this outstanding achievement and the students who made it possible!