By Tricia Harris
MADISON – The Journalism Education Association at Kansas State University has named St. Joseph Catholic School teacher Terry Cassreino one of the nation’s top three high school broadcast journalism advisers for 2020.
The JEA named Cassreino a Special Recognition Advisor – part of the organization’s annual Broadcast Adviser of the Year Awards. The JEA, founded in 1924, is a national organization for high school print and broadcast journalism teachers.
“I can’t begin to say how honored I am that a successful high school journalism program at a small Catholic school in Mississippi has received this important national recognition,” Cassreino said. “This award reflects well on St. Joseph Catholic School as well as the hard-working, dedicated high school journalism students I have been lucky to teach over the years – some of whom have gone on to study journalism, accounting and law in college.”
Cassreino was one of three journalism teachers JEA honored. Jim McCarthy of Joseph A. Gregori High School in Modesto, Calif., was named Broadcast Advisor of the Year and Christina Insua of Christopher Columbus High School in Miami was named Distinguished Broadcast Adviser.
Journalism is one of several electives available for St. Joe students. Those who take the class publish a yearbook every fall, The Shield; maintain, write and edit stories for a news website, The Bear Facts; and produce a weekly video newscast, Bruin News Now.
Students also produce a weekly radio show and podcast, “The Bruin Buzz Live,” and produce live radio broadcasts and live video streaming coverage of Bruin sports. Radio productions air on WJXC Jackson, Mississippi Catholic Radio, 107.9, whose studio is in Cassreino’s classroom.
Cassreino’s students and their work have received state, national and even international recognition. Students have been named the state’s high school journalist of the year and received the prestigious Orley Hood Award for Excellence in High School Sports Journalism six of the seven years it has been given.
Bruin News Now has been named Mississippi’s best high school newscast twice and been a finalist three other times. This year, Quill & Scroll International Honor Society for High School Journalists awarded BNN second place in an international competition for best news show.
Cassreino is a four-time Mississippi high school journalism adviser of the year and has been recognized twice by the Dow Jones News Fund as one of the nation’s top print journalism teachers.
Cassreino is a former longtime journalist with more than 25 years of experience as a reporter, political columnist and editor at Mississippi newspapers. He is married to the former Pam Vance of Canton; they have two children and are members of St. Joseph Catholic Gluckstadt.
“We are so proud of Terry Cassreino’s work with students here at St. Joe,” Principal Dena Kinsey said. “Our journalism students are excited about what they do and work tirelessly to produce high-quality work.”