It’s the New Year! And for a second before we look ahead at the possibilities of the year 2023 could be, as it just started, we wanted to reflect on the year that 2022 was. 2022 was grindtime for many people, most COVID restrictions had widely vanished, people we’re starting to really come back into themselves and readjust to the norm before “the new norm”, and one of the places that Leonardtown High was able to see that was in it’s Imprint journalists, who on paper and online wrote some absolutely remarkable content for the school or whole world to see. These articles are deserving of recognition, especially by their own publication. But, it would be too impractical to try to highlight all of the spectacular jobs done by Imprint staff in writing articles, acknowledging all of the work done journalistically and production-wise to make the articles that you read seamlessly from the paper or from your devices; nothing ever published in the Imprint is bad, all of the articles are high-quality, but, to uplift the best writing of last year for the current staff as intended, I threw together a list of what I thought we’re the top 5 Imprint articles of 2022. 

5. A Dell Dilemma: Coolmath Games Blocked on School Laptops 

By Ben Derisavi

This article is number five, because it is well written, interesting and most importantly provides pretty solid evidence that teachers and school admin do not actually like kids. The best games on the site are obsolete behind Adobe Flash’s support being dropped. There was no reason to even bother blocking the site because nobody in the entirety of the world wants to play “Big FLAPPY Tower vs Tiny Square” over the Pixel Quest series, or even the real Flappy Bird, which besides the addictive nature of it, from the slight challenge of getting a higher score, is also pretty mid. Ben’s article is a landmark of exposé journalism, and so I had to include it on this list.

4. Intro to the 2022-23 LHS Journalism Crew

By Jaden Morgan

This article is number four, because it performs the foundational task of introducing the reader to the journalists whose work they are reading. Without an understanding of at least some of the personality and voice of the writer in a nonfiction work, the reader cannot fully understand why they are writing what they are writing or why they wrote it the way that they wrote it. Jaden Morgan showed initiative and an awareness of the need for transparency from writer to reader in this article for the Fall Edition Imprint that is definitely worth a read when it is released. 

3. Winter Weather Dressing

By Jaden Morgan

This is number three, because it has a heavy comedic punch to it. Even though Jaden was freestyling here, he still has an uncanny ability to crack some funny, funny jokes. And he spoke some real facts in that many people in the school were wearing clothes that no person who checked the weather the night before would want to wear outside. Truly not sparing genuineness for humor.

2. Modest Heroes Review

By Jaden Morgan

This article is number two, because it is solid, fair and thorough. There was probably some flexing of writing chops and lexicon too in this article, as some of the sentences and word choices were just staggering. Another excellent movie review among many by the LHS 2022-23 Journalism Crew.

1. The Leonardtown High School Social Media Rabbit Hole

By Jaden Morgan

This article is number one, because it offers a bold, fascinating look into the depths of the unofficial Instagram accounts that are about the school. It ends up being kind of funny because of the contents of the article, but it was not totally intended to be that way. A check of the statistics of the analytics tool on the Imprint website’s admin settings also shows that this article drew the most traffic of any on the site for a time after its release, so the impact and reach of the article as well is very impressive and deserves its own acknowledgement. 

That’ll be all of the articles in the Imprint Fall Edition and on the Imprint website that we’re the top articles written last year by this staff, but the Journalism Crew focuses most energy on producing features for LTV, and those, like the articles in the Imprint Fall Edition and on the Imprint website are always ensured to be the absolute best that they can be before they are put in the LTV broadcast for the whole school to watch. So they also deserve acknowledgement for all of the hard work put into them, and the quality displayed in them of the production skill of the LHS Journalism Crew. And so without further ado, here is also the Top 5 LTV Features in 2022 by the 2022-23 Journalism Crew. That’s right, a two-for-one article, that’s what you get from us on the 2022-23 LHS Journalism Crew. 

5. Senior Year 

By Sammy

This feature is number five, because it is inspirational to see what all the seniors are looking forward to, and what their goals are for the year, but also in my unbiased opinion, the seniors are kinda just the best class in the school, the most interesting, the coolest, has all the brightest personalities, impeccable fashion sense, the nicest, the funniest, the seniors are just unrivaled in every way by any other class, exactly why we-I mean they won the spirit stick at the pep rally this year. Got beat at Endzone Ball, the Gobble Down, and the Seniors vs. Staff basketball game, but, what can you do when staff and underclassmen keep paying off referees? The pep rally was objective point scoring, so, the seniors’ superior skill just won us-I mean them the day that day. Yes, this Senior Year feature deserves number five, because of how great it is, as are the seniors. 

4. Leonardtown Scarecrow Stroll

By Jaden

This feature deserves number four, because it shows that the LHS 2022-23 Journalism Crew is not against going out there into the community and showcasing some of the most interesting things that the town has to offer. The scarecrows caught in this feature are also very cool or very scary, really getting their job done, they were selected well by Jaden when he did this feature. He also even got creative with direction, shooting this feature without a cameraman/woman, and it still came out looking quite nice and put together. 

3. Hawaiian Shirt Day

By Jaden

This feature deserves number three, because it has an exciting concept, having the school all participate in a fun event to support a school organization. Although it gets back on what that dude Jaden was talking about, wearing tropical shirts in fall/winter weather, the school didn’t seem to mind, because again, they must just not be vulnerable to air temperature. 

2. DC Christmas Tourism

By Jaden

This feature deserves number two, because it is a fun adventure, all through the National Mall of the nation’s capital, seeing some fun, festive Christmas tourist attractions for Raiders to have come down and seen if they wanted to over the break, it’s also great to see Raiders put on for their hometowns, and Jaden being a city-slicking cool guy from P.G County, right by the National Harbor, he can go all around P.G, D.C and Arlington/Alexandria to see what the whole DMV is up to, if he ever wants to for LTV/Imprint. And that’s pretty awesome. 

1. Reindeer Run

By Jaden

This feature deserves number one, because; very painfully cringey and embarrassing Visit from St. Nick poem remix aside; it takes the viewer on a thrilling ride through the festivities of the Reindeer Run/Walk-N-Talk event that the school hosted and the production value of the feature is amazing. I mean the way that Jaden hits the panoramic shots of Raider Stadium full of walking Raiders, Christmas decorations & trees all around the school, the fast-moving sweeps of the bottom floor main hallway going to the fishbowl that also had Christmas decorations around it and the spread of hot cocoa and holiday treats that the Journalism Crew provided. The boots-on-the-ground camera work, making sure that Jaden and his interviewee were in the shot at all times as much as possible. The shot on the field of the Reindeer Runners racing, albeit pretty awkward for Jaden behind the camera, just standing there behind the action happening. Cutting together and cropping and trimming multiple clips and overlaying visuals and text in a different font than standard font, which required a lot of Googling on how to do in Premiere so there was no goofy “Vita” mobile app watermark like in the Scarecrow Stroll feature, all of the technical prowess is shown here in this feature and that’s why on top of the fun concept, it deserves the top spot for all of the incredible features produced last year by this staff.

And with all of this considered, it’s exciting now to see what kind of mind-blowing articles will be written and features will be produced by the 2022-23 LHS Journalism Crew, because by the looks of these heavy-hitters on these lists, it is clear that this Crew knows how to make some purely resplendent content for the Imprint and LTV. 

*These lists, by the way, are to be taken completely seriously and not as jokes, I genuinely believe that I wrote 80% of the top articles on the Imprint Print and Online editions, and produced 80% of the top features on LTV. I do not fear my colleagues if I was being serious, because I am, all balling me up and putting me in the Media Center recycling can, because I do not have minimal muscle on my arms with no technique and could totally take any one of my fellow journalists in a fight. I would not get absolutely splattered. So thank you for reading this all the way here if you have, and for me, I have to get back to carrying the crew.