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Kansas City

Work with the best and prepare for 2025 by attending the exclusive Elite Weekend workshop in Kansas City.
 
You and a few key staff members will develop your 2025 theme package with the finest yearbook instructors.
 
Date: Sept. 6-8, 2024


Meet the instructors:

Martha Akers, retired in June 2022 after 41 years of advising and teaching journalism and yearbook at Loudoun Valley High School in Virginia. She was the 2005 JEA H.L. Hall Yearbook Adviser of the Year. The Saga consistently earned NSPA Pacemaker, CSPA Gold Crown and Virginia High School League Trophy honors, including selection to the NSPA Hall of Fame and the NSPA Pacemaker 100. National recognition for her includes a JEA Lifetime Achievement Award, a CSPA Gold Key and a NSPA Pioneer Award. State and regional recognition includes induction to the VHSL Hall of Fame and recognition of SIPA’s Distinguished Service Award. Throughout her career, she has consistently supported journalism advisers and students through teaching for and directing workshops nationwide; through serving as a judge in various state and national competitions, and through work on journalism textbooks and curricula. Currently, she works as a scholastic journalism consultant. 

Renee Burke MJE, works as a Media Promotions Senior Manager for Orange County Public Schools. Previously, she taught at William R. Boone HS (Orlando) for 22.5 years and served as the Florida Director for Journalism Education Association for 12 years. Renée is a nationally certified master journalism educator and JEA's 2015 H.L. Hall Yearbook Adviser of the Year. She was also the 2012 OCPS Teacher of the Year, 2011 Florida Scholastic Press Association Journalism Teacher of the Year and Gold Medallion recipient, and a 2011 Gold Key recipient from Columbia Scholastic Press Association.  She advised the Legend yearbook and Hi-Lights newspaper for 20 and 21 years, respectively. Both publications earned CSPA Crown awards and National Scholastic Press Association Pacemakers. 

Jim Jordan is the former yearbook adviser at Del Campo High School in Fair Oaks, California, and now a special consultant for Walsworth Yearbooks.

He was a yearbook adviser for 35 years, and over the years the Decamhian yearbook earned numerous Pacemaker and CSPA Gold Crown honors. The Decamhian was recognized in 2022 as having earned the second-highest number of Pacemakers in NSPA’s 100 year history.

Jordan was the 1996 JEA Yearbook Adviser of the Year, and has received CSPA Gold Key, NSPA Pioneer, JEA Medal of Merit and JEA Lifetime Achievement awards. He received the Linda S. Puntney Teacher Inspiration Award in 2021.

He now shares his expertise with students and advisers at workshops and conventions across the country and leads mentorship through the Adviser Mentor Program. He was among the first to embrace desktop technology in the 1980s and apply it to yearbook, and he remains an innovator in the yearbook industry.

Be sure to check out his yearbook-focused podcast, Yearbook Chat with Jim that highlights the stories of great yearbook advisers from around the country.

Leland Mallett CJE, teaches newspaper, yearbook and photography at Legacy High School in Mansfield, Texas. He has taught journalism for 23 years. His staff has won numerous CSPA Crowns, NSPA Pacemakers and Texas Stars. Mallett was named an NSPA Pioneer in 2022. He is also a JEA Distinguished Yearbook Adviser. He loves the art of telling stories in any media, but most of all, he loves to tell stories about his three amazing kids.

Vanessa Martinez, CJE, M.Ed., CJE, advises The Legend yearbook and AGO News at El Dorado High School in El Paso, Texas. She worked in multiple journalism and communication roles after graduating from UTEP in 2012 with a BA in Multimedia Journalism. She teaches graphic design and commercial photography, started advising in 2014 and earned the JEA Rising Star Award in 2019. She also coaches the UIL journalism team, and helped several students qualify for state competition. The Legend has earned multiple CSPA Silver and Gold Crowns, ILPC Stars and NSPA Pacemakers, along with NSPA Design of the Year in 2020. In 2023, she earned her Master of Education in Curriculum and Instruction from UTEP, with a concentration in Communication.

Susan Massy, who retired from Shawnee Mission Northwest High School, built a journalism empire with the school’s yearbook, news magazine and online publications. The Lair was named #1 in NSPA’s Top 100 and the Northwest Passage was listed in the Top 100 in 2020. Both have won numerous Pacemakers and Gold Crowns during her 45-year career as a journalism instructor and publications adviser. In 1999, Massy was named the National Yearbook Teacher of the Year by the Journalism Education Association.She has received the Engel Award (Kansas Journalism Teacher of the Year), NSPA’s Pioneer Award, JEA’s Medal of Merit, the Lifetime Achievement Award (2023) and CSPA’s Charles O’Malley Teaching Award (2023). Massy continues to travel nationally to work with individual staffs as well as present at state and national conventions and summer workshops. 

Sabrina Schmitz CJE, Sabrina Schmitz, CJE, is a Walsworth Yearbooks representative, key accounts specialist and the former publications adviser at J.W. Mitchell High School in Trinity, Florida. Under her leadership, The Stampede yearbook earned multiple CSPA Crowns, an NSPA Pacemaker, and was a Design of the Year Finalist. She was Teacher of the Year in 2013, was a District Teacher of the Year Finalist, and teaches at workshops and conventions nationwide. 

Brit Taylor is a yearbook, newspaper and website adviser in Oviedo, Florida, at Hagerty High School. He has advised yearbook for 31 years and newspaper for 26. Taylor is drawn to the real-world application of high school journalism, and he appreciates the many lessons that publications teach. He is the past president of the Florida Scholastic Press Association, and in the spring, he was recognized as a Distinguished adviser by JEA. His publications have earned Pacemaker and Crown awards, and his students have earned individual awards including Design of the Year finalists and Gold Circle awards. When he is not teaching workshops in Florida or beyond, Taylor likes to visit national parks with his wife, Maureen and three kids.

Mike Taylor, CJE, is a Key Accounts Manager with Walsworth Yearbooks. He taught yearbook, newspaper and television production at Lecanto High School, Lecanto, Florida, for 13 years, where his publications staffs won numerous awards. Taylor has been awarded the JEA Medal of Merit, CSPA Gold Key and Florida Scholastic Press Association Gold Medallion. As a well-known instructor at workshops and conventions across the country, he has consulted with countless yearbook staffs to help them realize their potential in creating journalistic yearbooks.