TEMPLE, Texas — Temple High School’s The Wildflower student literary and art magazine has been recognized as a Superior magazine by the National Council of Teachers of English (NCTE) for the second straight year.
The 2024 edition of The Wildflower received its Superior rating as part of the organization’s Recognizing Excellence in Art and Literary Magazines (REALM) contest. This was just the second issue of The Wildflower published after the magazine was restarted during the 2022-2023 school year. Schools in 45 states and five countries nominated a total of 422 student magazines this year. Magazines from middle school, high school, and higher education were welcomed for the 2024 contest. The Wildflower was one of just 21 student magazines from the state of Texas to receive recognition in this year’s REALM contest overall and only nine of those magazines received Superior designations. The 2024 issue of The Wildflower magazine includes original stories, poetry, artwork, and at least one musical composition submitted by Temple High School students.
“I am very proud of the students because they were very receptive to the feedback we had gotten the year before and were able to put that into practice and create a really professional looking magazine,” said Laura Betik, faculty advisor for The Wildflower and an English teacher at Temple HS. “It was really the students’ idea to bring the magazine back and I feel very honored to see that idea grow and flourish. It really feels special. I am also really thankful for the community support to allow us to publish because we don’t take advertising.”
Temple High School restarted The Wildflower magazine in 2022-2023 based on student interest in the project. Temple HS had originally produced a literary and art magazine called Wildflower from around 1970 until 2002. The Wildflower magazine staff works with English and visual arts teachers at the high school on assignments to help generate submissions to the magazine and all students are able to submit written or visual pieces in a variety of genres. The group also holds several contests each year to help drive submissions, including a Halloween themed contest in the fall of this year and the Wildflower Winter Bloom during the winter. There will also be another push this spring with a focus on photography and non-fiction writing for the 2025 edition.
With the success of the magazine being recognized in each of its first two years back on campus, the student staff members have seen the growth, not just in terms of the product, but also in terms of the numbers of students interested in working on and contributing to The Wildflower. Genevieve Allen and Rania Ahmed are both in their third year of working on the magazine and served on the editorial staff of last year’s award-winning edition before moving into new roles as Editor-In-Chief and Marketing Committee Chairperson for this year’s magazine.
“It is so much different now than that first year, I feel like the magazine has grown in terms of prestige and in the club itself,” Allen, a senior at THS, and fiction editor of the 2024 Wildflower said. “There is a bigger staff, and we have a larger age group now, where it was just kind of a group of friends in the beginning. I think having a leadership role here has really helped me take initiative and pursue what I am passionate about.”
“It has been incredible to come from almost nothing to see our hard work come to completion with a magazine that looks and feels professional,” added Ahmed, another senior, and Public Relations lead on last year’s magazine. “It shows what we can do in the world and the opportunities that we can grow into. It really represents Temple High School well because we are diverse and have really high expectations. We have seen people who are not in the club wanting to submit to the magazine. I have learned leadership skills and I feel like I have really matured with marketing because I have had a chance to really build this from the ground up.”
In addition to the Superior designation from NCTE, the 2024 edition of The Wildflower also received a First-Class rating and two distinctions from the National Scholastic Press Association (NSPA). This is the first time The Wildflower has submitted to the NSPA. First-Class is that organization’s second-highest rating and is more of a critique and not a competition. The critique also comes with valuable, specific feedback to help the staff and advisors continue to improve The Wildflower.
The REALM program publicly recognizes excellent literary magazines produced by students with the support of their teachers. REALM is designed to encourage all schools to develop literary magazines that celebrate the art and craft of writing. Schools in all 50 states, the District of Columbia, US territories, Canada, and American schools abroad are eligible to nominate magazines.
For more information about the REALM Program, please visit: https://ncte.org/awards/program-to-recognize-in-student-literary-magazines/.