McIntosh High School's Shanon Woolf named GSPA's 2022 Adviser of the Year

Shanon Woolf, adviser of the McIntosh Trail news website and The Legend Yearbook at McIntosh High School, has been selected as GSPA’s Adviser of the Year. Adviser of the Year recognizes a journalism teacher who goes beyond the “call of duty” in supporting his or her staff.

Shanon Woolf (right) looks at her staff with surprise and admiration during the announcement that she is the 2022 GSPA’s Adviser of the Year on April 11, 2022 at the UGA Georgia Center. Photo by Jackson Schroeder

After taking over two publications that were nearly in ruins in 2018, Woolf went on to win GSPA’s First-Year Adviser Award in 2019. The McIntosh Trail won the Turnaround Award that same year.

Ever since landing what she describes as her dream job, Woolf has worked to contribute to the profession and the trade at the state and national levels. She was McIntosh High School's Star Teacher in 2020 and named a Rising Star in 2020 by the Journalism Education Association.

Her students sing her praises. “Ms. Woolf always gives us her full support and encourages us to reach our full potential; she pushes us to further achieve even more than we thought possible,” one student wrote in a nomination letter. “She genuinely enjoys getting to know and love her staff as individuals and she makes an effort to check up on us...she is the true example of an adviser that goes miles above the call of duty to make sure her students are successful and leave her room prepared to face the real journalism world.”

Woolf says her students are responsible for the programs’ successes. “I’m just giving them the space to be heard, the instruction to turn their ideas into reality and the support they need to feel confident that the final decisions are ones supported by the Code of Ethics and our policy manual,” she said.

Woolf was recognized at the 2022 Spring Workshop and Awards April 11 at the UGA Georgia Center.