A student advertising team from UNT's Mayborn School of Journalism earned top honors from the National Student Show and Conference, winning "Best in Category" for a 30-second television commercial for Lawry's Garlic Pepper seasoning. The Mayborn School also was named "Best School" in the competition.

Student teams in Principal Lecturer Bill Ford's Advertising Design course spent a whole semester developing full collaterals for a range of consumer products. The winning team, led by senior Julion Polk, leveraged the popular saying "Slap Your Buds" to produce a humorous and effective concept. In the competition, a total of 129 submissions were accepted from more than 1,200 entries.

Broadcast and reporting students from the Mayborn School also were recently recognized as Mark of Excellence Regional award winners by the Society of Professional Journalists. First place winners will compete at the national level among other regional Mark of Excellence winners from the 12 SPJ regions. Mayborn students were honored for TV Breaking News Reporting, Broadcast Feature Videography, Online/Digital Feature Videography, Non-fiction Magazine Article and Breaking News Reporting.

In addition, it was announced in May that Mayborn student Carter Mize won third place in Hearst's Breaking News Writing competition.