Peninsula High School Students Receive Journalism Awards

Palo Alto High School cleaned up at the Peninsula Press Club’s high school journalism awards on Monday, taking home 6 first place prizes, including the prestigous General Excellence Award.

Inside the Notre Dame du Namur college in Belmont, dozens attended the ceremony which rewarded the best in high school journalism. The competition was between Peninsula high schools, 459 entries from 221 students.

“This has been a remarkable year,” said Michelle Carter, who sits on the Board of Directors for the press club. “Some of these submissions are outstanding.”

While Palo Alto’s The Campanile won the award for General Excellence, its sports-centric newspaper The Viking picked up first place prizes for best sports story, best column, and best feature photo. The Paly Voice, also from Palo Alto High School, won first place for Best News Story and Best Website Content.

“We put a lot of hard work into this,” said junior Lauren Wong, 16, a staff writer for The Campanile who won an Honorable Mention in the feature writing category.

The Campanile is an elective course at Palo Alto High School run by teacher Ester Wojcicki and made up of about 60 students. The paper puts out 12 issues a year. The school beat out The Oracle of Gunn High School and the Colt Quaterly of El Camino High School in South San Francisco.

As a result of winning the general excellence award, members of the Campanile will attend the San Francisco Peninsula Press Club professional awards ceremony on May 21.

Other big winners were Kimbery Ibanez and Jaime Real who penned a feature about depression in teens that beat out 164 other entries to capture the judges respect and the feature writing award.

Hannah Kim of the Paly Voice took home the Best News Story award after besting 87 other entires in the nights second most competitive category,

Carlmont High School won honorable mention in the General Excellence, Layout and Design and Feature Writing categories. The latter focused on the work of Steven Tsujisaka, won second place for Connor Moore for sports writing and third place for Arik Schiessow’s columns.

“I think one thing this ceremony does is let’s young people know they are a lot better at this than they thought they were,” said Carter. “A lot of them submitted really great work and deserved to be noticed.”

A complete list of winners:

General Excellence –

1st Place – The Campanile – Palo Alto High School

2nd Place – The Oracle – Gunn High School

3rd Place – The Colt Quaterly – El Camino High School, South San Francisco

Honorable Mention: The Outlook – Aragon High School, San Mateo

Honorable Mention: The Panther – Eastside College Prep

Honorable Mention: The Highlander –Carlmont High School, Belmont

Feature Story:

1st Place – Kimberly Ibanez & Jaime Real – The Panther – Eastsiders College Prep

2nd Place – Nathan Morimoyo, John Dckerson, and Mariah Philips – The Viking – Palo Alto High School

3rd Place – Rachel Marcus – The Outlook – Aragon High School

Best News Story:

1st Place - Hannah Kim – The Paly Voice – Palo Alto High School

2nd Place - Tiffany Hu & Annie Shuey – The Oracle – Jefferson High School

3rd Place – Aaron Zelinger – The Paly Voice – Palo Alto High School

Honorable Mention – Maria Paras & Shawn Singh – The Tom Tom – Jefferson HS

Honorable Mention - Tiffany Hu & Annie Shuey – The Oracle – Jefferson high School

Sports Story:

1st Place – Mary Albertolle & Mark Rafttey – The Viking – Palo Alto High School

2nd Place - Connor Moore – The Highlander – Carlmont High School

3rd Place – Elia Moreno – The Tom Tom – Jefferson High School

Column:

1st Place – Michael Cullen – The Viking – Palo Alto High School

2nd Place – Jeremy Venook – The San mateo Hi – San Mateo High School

3rd Place: Arik Schiessow – The Highlander – Carlmont High School

Honorable Mention: Victoria Bevington – Mills High School

Editorial:

1st Place – Katharine Pong – The Thunderbolt – Mills High School

2nd Place – Catherine Anne Tadina – The Cult Quaterly – El Camino High School

3rd Place – Angelica Perez – The Panther – Eastside College Prep

Website Design:

1st Place: The Bear Cat

2nd Place: MA Bear News, Menlo-Atherton High School

3rd Place: The Paly Voice, Palo Alto High School

Website Content:

1st Place – The Paly Voice – Palo Alto High School

2nd Place – The oracle – Gunn High School

3rd Place: Aragon Outlook – Aragon High School

News Photo:

1st Place – Pauline Santos – The Tom Tom – Jefferson High School

2nd Place – Eric Torres – The Outlook – Aragon High School

Feature Photo:

1st Place – Brandon Dukovic – The Viking – Palo Alto High school

2nd Place – Gladys Bstos – The Panther – Eastside College Prep

3rd Place - Kore Chan – The Outlook – Aragon High School

Best Sports Photo:

1st Place – Morgan Babbs – The San Mateo Hi – San Mateo High School

2nd Place – Briana Chavex – The Panther – Eastside College Prep

3rd Place - Kenan Chan – The Outlook Aragon HS

Layout & Design:

1st place – The Oracle – Gunn High school

2nd Place – Eastside Panther – Eastside College Prep

3rd Place – The Aragon Outlook – Aragon High School, San Mateo

Honorable Mention – The Highlander – Carlmont High School