Avon High School’s newspaper, The Echo, was recognized over the weekend as a top student publication in the country.

The award — a seventh-place “Best of Show” for newspapers 16 pages or fewer — was announced in Dallas, Texas at the NSPA/JEA National High School Journalism Convention, a conference attended by nearly 5,000 students from across the country.

“It was honestly surreal,” said senior Claire Rightley, editor-in-chief of The Echo. “I’ve been working on the paper for three years, and I know how hard we work to put together the best paper we can, so to hear that we can actually hold our ground up against all these other papers nationally is pretty amazing in my opinion.”

A critiquer praised the newspaper staff for their use of visuals and layouts to enhance the presentation of their stories. Also complimented was the staff’s in-depth coverage of clubs, academics and other school-related topics — as opposed to politics and national events.

“It was amazing to hear praise on all of our hard work,” said senior Brooke Beaman, managing editor of The Echo. “As an editor, it was really validating to see that we’ve done some things correctly.”

In addition to Rightley and Beaman, the newspaper staff is led by managing editor Caroline Emenaker, a junior, web editor-in-chief Tierra Harris, a senior, and web managing editors Dia Gill and Reece Westfall, both juniors.

Other Indiana high schools with newspapers placing in the top 10 were Carmel (fifth place, newsmagazine),  Columbus East (ninth place, newsmagazine), North Central (fourth place, newspaper special edition), Plainfield (seventh place, newspaper special edition), Columbus North (ninth place, newspaper special edition) and Zionsville (10th place, newspaper special edition).