Cassreino heads St. Joe's award-winning student media program

Former Mississippi journalist finds place teaching high school

    For Terry R. Cassreino, education is a second career, coming more than 25 years after serving as an award-winning journalist, political columnist and investigative reporter for several Mississippi newspapers.

    Before teaching, Cassreino served as Capitol Bureau Chief for 13 years at The Sun Herald in Gulfport, managing editor for eight months at The Madison County Journal, assistant managing editor for four years at The Meridian Star and assistant managing editor for 15 months at the Hattiesburg American.     

    Cassreino, 65, enrolled in Teach Mississippi Institute in 2010 – the two-year teacher certification program for professionals offered by the University of Mississippi. He received his teaching certificate from the Mississippi State Department of Education in 2011 and began teaching English 8 at St. Joe that fall. 

    In August 2012, Cassreino began rebuilding St. Joe’s journalism program, quickly turning it into the state’s top student media program. Today, Cassreino teaches eighth- through 12th-grade students Print Journalism, Broadcast Journalism and Sports Broadcasting. He teaches a one-semester broadcast journalism class for seventh graders, giving them a glimpse into St. Joe’s award-winning high school program. He also teaches English 9 Honors.

    Cassreino’s eighth grade and high school students edit and produce the school yearbook, The Shield; produce and staff a Friday weekly newscast “Bruin News Now”; produce and staff a Wednesday morning news update show, the “BNN Midweek Paws”; produce and staff a Monday morning sports preview, “What’s Bruin at the Joe”; and produce and staff live streaming video and radio sports coverage of varsity football, varsity girls basketball and varsity boys basketball. His seventh-grade students end their semester class producing “JV Bruin News Now.”

    Students Receive Recognition

    Pictavo, the online program St. Joe uses to design The Shield, named St. Joe’s 2025 edition of the yearbook to the “Pictavo Honor Roll.” Pictavo gives the award to schools for yearbook excellence.

   The Mississippi Scholastic Press Association named “JV Bruin News Now” the state’s best middle school newscast for the third straight year. And the MSPA named “Bruin News Now” Mississippi’s top high school newscast in 2017, 2018, 2025 and 2026. The show was a finalist for the award in 2019, 2020, 2021, 2022, 2023 and 2024.

    In addition, “Bruin News Now” was named Best News Show in April 2025 and again in April 2026 by the Writing, Visuals and Multimedia Contest sponsored by Quill & Scroll International Honor Society for High School Journalists. The competition attracted hundreds of entries from 120 high schools across the nation, China, Canada, England and the Netherlands.

    Cassreino’s students have twice been named Mississippi High School Journalist of the Year. His students have also received the prestigious Orley Hood Award for Excellence in High School Sports Journalism (named after longtime, popular, Clarion-Ledger sports writer and columnist Orley Hood) seven of the 13 times the honor has been given.

   In 2023, the Journalism Education Association at the University of Kansas named Cassreino the National High School Broadcast Adviser of the Year – the first time a Mississippi educator received the prestigious award. Cassreino was a runner-up for the award in 2022 and 2020.

    Other Major Honors

    Besides that, Cassreino is a two-time runner-up in 2014 and 2015 for the Dow Jones News Fund National High School Journalism Teacher of the Year. He is also a four-time MSPA Mississippi high school journalism adviser of the year and has been a finalist for the honor each of the past eight years.

    The Mississippi Department of Education and the Midsouth Association of Independent Schools, or the MAIS, has licensed Cassreino to teach high school English and journalism. In addition, the MAIS has licensed him as a school administrator. And he is a certified journalism educator through the Journalism Education Association.

  Cassreino, a New Orleans native, is a 1979 graduate of Jesuit High School in New Orleans. He attended Loyola University in New Orleans and earned bachelor’s degrees in Journalism and in Radio & TV from the University of Mississippi in May 1985. He earned a master’s degree in Educational Leadership, with a Catholic education emphasis, from the University of Dayton in December 2017.  

    Cassreino is married to the former Pamela Vance of Madison, who also teaches at St. Joseph Catholic School. They have two children, Camryn, a senior, and Matthew, a freshman, both at Mississippi Christian University (formerly known as Mississippi College). The Cassreinos are members of St. Joseph Catholic Church in Gluckstadt.

   Cassreino is an avid film buff, a fan of classic and contemporary American and foreign films. He is active in the Carnival scene in New Orleans, where he is a member of the Krewe of Thoth Mardi Gras organization. Thoth parades through New Orleans the Sunday afternoon before Fat Tuesday.