By Jennifer Stultz
Tri-County Tribune Editor
jstultz@cherryroad.com

For the third year in a row, the Washburn WIFI Film Festival selected a St. John short film in the Kansas High School category for top level awards. The project selected, “Beyond the Truth,” was created by the first hour AV Production class at USD 350 St. John and will be screened on April 12 at Washburn Univeristy in Topeka, KS. The online awards show will stream on April 13th at 2 p.m.

“Put what our students just did in perspective,” said Mac Knight, AV Productions Teacher at St. John. “Our second place film, made by five freshmen and one junior with zero prior filmmaking experience from a 1A school in south central Kansas, held it’s own against experienced filmmaking students from 5A and 6A schools in the Kansas City metro area!”

Knight said congratulations were due to students Zoey, Jayce, Abi, Liam, Lilly and Teresa on another selection and nomination.

At the beginning of this school year, 12 new filmmakers started taking the St. John AV productions class, Knight said. They had not written a script, filmed a scene, used editing software, designed sounds, created lighting for a set, directed their peers or produced a finished product for a worldwide audience.

“Since then, these students have produced two full news casts (a first for us!), two 24 hour film entries, three PSAs, a sports hype video and two original short films,” Knight said. “They submitted the most entries we have ever had for the eMagine Media Festival. That is an accomplishment on its own.”

“Beyond the Truth,” the classes’ most recent project was announced as a Top 5 Selection in the 2025 eMagine Media Festival short film category.

“This is the second year in a row we have had a Top 5 finish in the Short Film category, our fifth year of at least one Top 5 Selection and our 10th overall Top 5 Selection,” Knight said. “As I have stated numerous times over the years, we are the smallest school to participate in the eMagine Media Festival. Our competition comes from 6A, 5A and 4A schools with video production programs that have been established for decades as the best in our state and region.”

The award was announced March 29 at the eMagine Awards Show at Olathe Northwest High School. The St. John High School group left SJH at noon, drove four hours to Olathe, had an early dinner, went to the eMagine Media Festival Awards at Olathe Northwest High School and had to wait until the last category of the evening to find out how we did.

”It was worth the wait,” Knight said. “Our Top 5 selected film won the comedy subcategory and placed second overall in the short film category.”