By Emily Younker
eyounker@joplinglobe.com
WEBB CITY, Mo. — Scott Roderique, 16, is an honorable mention winner in C-SPAN’s national StudentCam competition, which encouraged middle-school and high-school students to produce a five- to eight-minute documentary focusing on a strength or challenge of the country.
He will receive $250 for his documentary, “America’s Weaknesses — High School Dropouts.”
Roderique, a junior at Webb City High School, said he didn’t have to look far for the subject of his documentary.
“There were signs in the school that said ‘Graduation Matters,’ and there was something I saw about graduation rates around the area schools,” he said, referring to area school districts’ campaign to improve graduation rates. “We were told to do either a strength or a weakness of America as a country, and I thought that was the most relevant to me.”
Roderique said he began working on his documentary in December, though initially he thought it was an assignment for his news class.
He interviewed and shot video segments with Superintendent Ron Lankford, a high-school counselor and a student who had decided to return to school after dropping out. When he was finished shooting the video, he recorded a few voice-overs and put his documentary together using an editing program.
Roderique, who estimated that he put 24 hours of work into his project, said he had to return to the video work after Christmas break to finish it. At the request of his instructor, Annie Patrick, he and his classmates then submitted their videos to the StudentCam competition.
He found out at school last week that he had been selected as a winner.
“Our principal just pulled me aside and said, ‘I need to talk to you,’” he said. “I thought I was in trouble. He got me into his office and played the message from the guy at C-SPAN that explained everything.”
Roderique said he was shocked to hear that he had won.
“I looked on the (StudentCam) Web site to make sure, and I saw the people from everywhere around the country, and then I just saw my name,” he said. “I was kind of like, ‘Wow.’ I was definitely surprised.”
Roderique said he is glad he put forth the effort to finish his documentary. He said he learned something about the importance of staying in school.
“If you have that diploma and you’re up against someone competing for a job who doesn’t have a diploma, you’re probably going to get the job,” he said.
Nearly 2,000 students in 45 states and the District of Columbia submitted 1,003 entries to the StudentCam contest, which is in its sixth year. C-SPAN selected one grand-prize winner, two first-place winners, eight second-place winners, 16 third-place winners and 48 honorable mentions.
The documentaries were judged by a panel of C-SPAN representatives, and were evaluated based on representation of the theme, quality of expression, adherence to the time limit, inclusion of varying sides of the topic, and incorporation of C-SPAN programming.
Top winners
The top 27 documentaries will air daily on C-SPAN beginning Thursday, April 1, at about 5:50 a.m.
