![](https://sites.up.edu/upbeat/files/2022/06/sports-photo.jpg)
The Beacon, UP’s award-winning student newspaper, has earned two national first place honors from the Society of Professional Journalists for work published last year.
SPJ’s 2021 Mark of Excellence Awards recognized The Beacon with first place in the Breaking News Reporting (small schools) category for its reporting on the campus power outage that cancelled classes in February, 2021. SPJ also awarded Beacon photographer Ryan Reynolds first place in Sports Photography (small schools) for his photo of the UP men’s soccer team celebrating a late August home victory.
SPJ recognized The Beacon as a finalist in two other categories for small schools (under 10,000 enrollment): Feature Writing – Will Mulligan, and Video Game Reporting – Austin De Dios.