Great Lakes Echo may be a young news service – it celebrated its second birthday this past March – but the twos aren’t always terrible.

And second in the nation ain’t bad either.

Echo reporters Alice Rossignol and Rachael Gleason were dubbed runner ups for their work on the Great Lakes SmackDown! this past fall.  The series earned second place in the country for the Online Commentary and Opinion category of the Society of Professional Journalists National Mark of Excellence Awards.

The contest recognizes exemplary journalism work of students across the country.

The four-week series created dialogue about Great Lakes aquatic invasive species in an innovative way by pitting species against each other in a bracket format. Reader and expert input were used to determine which species was the worst for the lakes.

And this showing in the Mark of Excellence finals wasn’t our first.

In 2009, Echo reporters nabbed another finalist spot for the Special Report: Cleaning Coal. Last year, our reporters also placed regionally:

Here’s a list of the regional Society of Professional Journalist Mark of Excellence awards Echo staff earned this year:

- Great Lakes Echo staff, 2^nd place, Best Independent Online Student Publication – www.greatlakesecho.org

- Great Lakes Echo staff, 3^rd place, Online In-depth Reporting – Recycling Cities

-  Alice Rossignol and Rachael Gleason, 1^st place, Online Commentary & Opinion Great Lakes SmackDown! (Also a finalist in the national competition)

-  Alice Rossignol, 3^rd place, Radio News Reporting – Central Michigan University students clean up campus, honor mother Earth

We’re not ashamed to recognize that we’ve been patting ourselves on the back and high-fiving each other for our hard work. After all, we are professionals.