The Illinois Journalism Education Association (IJEA) honors a Friend of Scholastic Journalism every year at its annual conference. On Friday, September 12, 2014 the IJEA named former IHSA Assistant Executive Director and Journalism administrator Susie Knoblauch as its 2014 Friend of Scholastic Journalism honoree. Knoblauch was in South Dakota for her new position with the NFHS and unable to attend the ceremony on the University of Illinois campus, but recorded the following acceptance speech that looks back at some of the highlights of the IHSA Journalism State Series: