Fifty-three UTRGV students were honored last month during the American Advertising Federation-RGV ADDY Awards Gala at the Grand Banquet Center in McAllen.
Eight students earned gold ADDYs at the 1920s-themed gala held Feb. 20.
The AAF is one of the oldest national advertising organizations, dating to 1905. There are over 200 chapters, said Kimberly Selber, vice president of the AAF-RGV and chair of the competition and gala. Selber is also a communication associate professor and graduate program coordinator at UTRGV.
For student awards, there are gold, bronze, silver and honorable mentions. Students who receive a gold award at the district level advance to nationals.
One of the winners was mass communication senior Sierra Spinler. She called the gala exciting and unique.
“It’s definitely super cool to see a lot of professionals within the field and in the [Rio Grande] Valley just kind of all come together to celebrate each other,” Spinler said.
Spinler received a bronze Student ADDY for her submission “Off the Grid,” which was originally a class project for Selber’s copywriting class. For the class, students had to come up with “campaigns with the creative concepts and execute it in terms of, all the way from, what it’s supposed to say to the art direction,” Spinler said.
She chose the inReach GPS service of the Garmin company as her four-piece campaign. The inReach GPS service assists people who do not have signal in their cellphones, she said.
Spinler said her campaign is about connecting yourself to nature in the wild and staying safe.
“You want to be safe when you do that, so you don’t just, you know, get hurt or something, and … no one knows where you’re at,” she said.
Spinler said Selber encouraged her to submit the project to the competition.
“She’s, like, ‘Just turn it in, see what happens,’ so I did,” the communication major said.
Other winners include the Pulse magazine staff and several individual members.
Aje-Ori Agbese, an associate professor in the Communication department and Pulse faculty adviser, said it was a good feeling to win 11 ADDY awards this year.
“Last year, I think we won six or seven … and winning a lot more this year was a very good feeling,” she said.
Agbese described the 2019 Pulse staff as “very hard-working.”
“They worked really hard to create a really good magazine,” she said.
Agbese believes earning more gold ADDY awards would be great.
“I would like to see the students compete at the national level for the ADDYs,” she said.
Agbese thanked Selber, Student Media Director Azenett Cornejo, Program Adviser Jesus Sanchez and all the people at Student Media.
“A big thank you to all of them for their support and their help,” she said.
Patricia Ramon, Pulse editor-in-chief, said the current members have been motivated by the previous staff earning the 11 ADDY awards.
“It impacted us by wanting us to strive to be just as great as we were this year, if not better, to win the same amount of awards,” Ramon said. “And, it just made us take a lot more pride in the work that we’re doing to make sure that it meets the standard of quality that the last issue did.”
Erik Webster, former Pulse editor-in-chief, said attending the gala showed all his dedication had been worth it.
“It is nice for something like Pulse magazine, where you put in two semesters’ worth of work, and you pour your heart and soul into it,” he said. “And so, at the end of the year or the following year when you go to these awards, it’s really nice to see that people enjoyed it, that they think there’s a value in it, that they appreciate it.”
Webster who graduated last year from UTRGV with a bachelor’s degree in mass communication, is now a video production manager for RGVision Media, which he believes has been impacted by his work for Pulse.
“When I’m editing photos and videos, going out and shooting video, taking pictures, it’s all come full circle,” he said. “Those are incredibly important skills that you need to develop if you’re going to be in this kind of industry.”
Steven Hughes, a mass communication senior and Pulse photography editor, received a bronze Student ADDY award for his photo essay titled “Butterfly.”
“Butterfly” was a random thought Hughes had one day.
“I was just bored one day, and I was, like, ‘You know what, let’s write about butterflies,’” he said.
With Agbese’s advice on challenging himself to think of different perspectives, Hughes decided to write about butterfly migration and conservation.
“Local efforts are being done here to preserve monarch butterflies, which is what specifically the story’s about,’’ Hughes said.
The photo essay required Hughes to interview environmental science majors, students who had an opinion regarding monarch butterflies and outside sources who work on conservation efforts in the Valley and beyond.
As for the photo, Hughes traveled to the Brownsville campus to visit its butterfly garden. Before taking a picture, he observed the butterflies’ patterns. Eventually, he saw one butterfly that he decided to photograph.
The photograph consisted of a butterfly in focus, standing on milkweed, while the background is blurred out. Taking the photo and editing it was difficult, Hughes said.
“I wanted to capture as much vibrancy, a lot of color coming off of these insects and I managed to do that,” he said.
Hughes and Michel Flores Tavizon, Pulse graphics editor, received an honorable mention for “Q&A Josie Del Castillo.”
Flores Tavizon, a graphic design senior, also received a bronze Student ADDY for a poster she created titled “Inner Nature Call for Art.”
The poster encourages students to submit art pieces and had been previously made as an illustration for a class project. She said she would ask Celeste de Luna, her professor at the time, to give her advice on what to fix.
For the Pulse poster, she felt “it was better to make it digital.”
The poster had been submitted to the competition by Hughes and Ramon. After they told her, she said it was great because she hadn’t thought of submitting it herself.
“I didn’t think that specific project would get something,” Flores Tavizon said. “I thought maybe an honorable mention, but it did get, like, bronze.”
She advises students to not underestimate their work.
Selber said she is proud of the students’ accomplishments.
“I’m always so impressed with the work and it makes me feel really proud when we’re displaying it,” she said. “The professionals are walking around looking at the work and they’re like, ‘Wow, this is a work that’s coming out of UTRGV.’”
For a complete list of winners, click here.
