The Daily Mississippian was named best daily student newspaper for the fourth year in a row, theDMonline.com won best affiliated website and University of Mississippi students won
a total of eight individual awards in the 2017 Society of Professional Journalists Mark of Excellence Region 12 competition.
UM students placed first in nine categories, and one student earned finalist recognition. SPJ honors one first-place winner and up to two finalists in each category.

Region 12 includes universities in Mississippi, Arkansas, Tennessee and Louisiana. Some categories are separated for small and large colleges. Ole Miss competes in the large university category. Entries are judged by professional journalists.

First-place individual winners were: Devna Bose, feature writing; Marlee Crawford, breaking news photography; Lauren Layton, online/digital feature videography; Jules Marcantonio, television general news reporting; Ariyl Onstott, online news reporting; Jake Thrasher, editorial cartooning; Clara Turnage and Malachi Shinault, online feature reporting. Grant Gaar was a finalist in the television feature reporting category.

All first-place winners advance to judging for national awards, competing against first-place winners in the other 11 regions. National winners will be announced in May.

The regional conference and awards ceremony were during the weekend of March 16 in Little Rock, Arkansas.