Day one. (The first full day in D.C.)

Today was my first full day in Washington D.C. I woke up early this morning to go have breakfast. And by early, I mean like 6 A.M. I walked around the hotel and ended up going to a near by McDonalds with one of my roommates. After breakfast, we went back to the hotel room to meet up with our other roommates and we decided to go get Starbucks. We were told it was one block away. Who knew one means six in D.C.? Not us. Ha ha!

Today was definitely an interesting start to the convention.

We started out the trip by agreeing to sleep in until 1 p.m. Thursday morning, since we did not have tours until 1:30 — We woke up at 6 a.m.. After killing a few hours just being lazy, my three roommates and I decided it was time for a Starbucks run. We were told at first that it was only a block away, then two. It ended up being six. No big deal.

There are a few perks to being on staff. Deadline dinners with the best BBQ that Kansas City has to offer [Oklahoma Joe’s, located in a gas station. Seriously good.]. Spirited Photoshop wars with the photographers. And finally, there are the trips. I’ve now been on five journalism getaways: D.C., a trip to Anaheim in the spring of my freshman year, St. Louis last fall and workshops in Dallas each of the last two summers.

When one travels to enough of these things, it’s hard not to pick up on a few stereotypes. The Virginia kids are always the most supportive at the awards ceremonies, complete with “V-A” chants after a student chalks up another accomplishment for the Old Dominion State. The other Kansas kids seem to be the most competitive.

The huge throng of student journalists who attended the JEA/NSPA keynote on Thursday night got to pocket journalist Nick Clooney’s advice: Be vigilant, be inquisitive, be thorough, be fair, be courageous and be wary of power, even any that you get.

Clooney talked about being open-minded and fair, quoting his grandfather: “It’s not what you don’t know that will hurt you, it’s what you know that ain’t so.”

Even with cold, wet rain soaking the host city, the first day of the Fall National High School Journalism Convention got off to a rousing start on Thursday.

After many staffs spent the rain-soaked morning taking in the historical sites around Washington D.C., the exhibit floor opened on Thursday afternoon and was greeted with a throng of traffic thanks to what JEA/NSPA are calling the largest convention crowd in the event’s history at more than 6,300 attendees.

Let the fun begin – hundreds of publications staffs from all over the country began to arrive in Washington D.C. today for this week’s JEA/NSPA National High School Journalism Convention.

Speaking of fun, try a 6 a.m. flight into the Nation’s Capital! That’s what myself and my Walsworth co-workers had this morning, and we shared that flight with some aspiring young journalists very excited to be on their way to the convention.

You can start planning out your convention schedule before you ever get to D.C. later this week, by taking a look at the JEA/NSPA program online.

Download a PDF of the program, or flip through it in the online viewer that NSPA has set up on their Blog with issuu.com.

Walsworth is going to be high profile at the JEA/NSPA Convention in Washington D.C. next week, and you will be able to read about everything we have going on right here in Walsworth Live.

But we also want to hear from you – the yearbook staffs who will be heading to D.C. Written posts, photos, videos – we welcome all of it. And submitting your stuff is easy.