C-Span Award

Hendrix Crouther, Jake Ritter, and Exly Lundahl (left to right) are juniors here at Millikan who won an honorable mention in the C-Span competition for their documentary on the effects of Covid-19 on the supply chain.

Laila Matin and Cali Tirado
June 2, 2022

This May, QUEST juniors Jake Ritter, Hendrix Crouther, and Exly Lundahl won an Honorable Mention in the 2022 C-SPAN StudentCam competition, becoming the first Millikan students to do so. A ceremony was held May 17 at 1:30 p.m. in Millikan’s Courtroom to celebrate this group’s achievement, as well as to present them with the awards. The select audience consisted of a group of students from Millikan, a C-Span worker, Tom O’Brien, who was interviewed in this documentary and is a professor at Long Beach State, and Councilwoman Stacy Mungo, who presented the awards.

Around 1,500 videos were submitted this year for the theme “How does the federal government impact your life?” Out of those 1,500, Millikan’s submission placed in the top 10 percent.

Their documentary was called “Something in the Water” and addressed the effects Covid-19 has had on the supply chain and consequently, Long Beach ports. 

Ritter stated, “…when you look at a supply chain, it’s really a set of systems within a system, and as you peel back the layers, you find out just how many causes there are for what is happening currently and what was happening last year, and its lasting impact.”

The topic of the supply chain did not register in the top ten topics that were submitted in the competition. It has not only impacted the Long Beach community, but also the country as a whole, which helped their entry stand out. 

These students became interested in this topic, Lundahl stated, because “…there was an oil spill and I couldn’t surf for a week, which got me thinking why that happened and why there were so many boats in the water.”

PHOTO COURTESY OF: the “Something In the Water” documentary Photo of a crane at 1:12 in the documentary located at the Port of Long Beach

Crouther went on to explain, “We really just want them to see how integral all the parts of the port are, how important the city jobs there were, and how important it is to understand that…”

This video is important because it sheds light on the supply chain issues our community is encountering and shows us that while we might not realize it, it impacts each of us. 

Congratulations to these juniors on their documentary and on being the first students here at Millikan to win this award!