A graduate of Quitman High School was recently honored for a Mississippi Association of Broadcasters award for an article chronicling protests and other events that took place in Petal this past summer.
Renaldo Hopkins II was awarded first place recognition in the Social Media category for his contribution to a WDAM 7 Hattiesburg-Laurel news article titled “Summer of Petal Protests.”
The article was a timeline of events that happened in the town of Petal, Ms., following social media remarks from then-Petal mayor Hal Marks on his opinion of the murder of George Floyd last May - from the numerous protest, at Petal City Hall to Marx announcing that he would not campaign to be reelected in the upcoming election.
Hopkins II, son of Renaldo Sr. and Brenda Hopkins, graduated from QHS in 2015 with High Honors and went on to attend East Mississippi Community College as a member of the Mighty Lion Band.
After graduating from EMCC in 2017, Hopkins II received his bachelor’s in Communication from Mississippi State University and began working for WDAM 7 in 2019 as a Digital Content Producer.
Hopkins II was also awarded a third-place honor in the same category for his contribution to another WDAM 7 article about the back-to-back tornados that came through the Pine Belt area in 2020.
