The Feather staff competed with high schools across the Valley in the the San Joaquin Valley Scholastic Press Association’s annual conference at California State University, Fresno, March 7.
The event, sponsored by the Department of Mass Communication and Journalism at the university, featured workshops and writing contests in the morning and ended with an awards ceremony in the afternoon.
The journalism team from Clovis West High School won sweepstakes, the highest honor, while Stagg High School from Stockton took second and Tokay High School out of Lodi placed third.
The association determines the Sweepstakes winner based on print edition results from the mail-in competition, the critique of the previous year’s newspaper issues and the on-the-spot writing contests.
About 200 students, representing 22 high schools throughout the Valley from Lodi to Bakersfield, participated in the conference, according to The Fresno Bee.
Clovis West’s victory marked the first in at least 20 years for the school, Dr. Gary Rice, Executive Director of the association, said as he presented the award. Last year, The Feather won Sweepstakes for the first time in its history and held the three-foot trophy until the conference on Saturday.
“I think the adviser has created a lot of excitement and passion for the Clovis West newspaper,” Greg Stobbe, adviser for The Feather, said. “Their staff has definitely shown improvement and was worthy for the Sweepstakes award.”
Although The Feather did not finish at the top this year, 14 journalists on the staff received individual recognition. The hard copy newspaper merited a Superior rating in the critique, and junior Elizabeth Grossman, the only person responsible for producing the print edition, earned three awards for her skills.
“It feels like my hard work over the past semester is being rewarded,” Grossman, layout and design editor, said. “Most of the focus [on campus] is placed on the online paper, so it’s nice to know that I’m doing a good job. I was really excited because I didn’t really expect to win much ? we were going up against bigger schools who put a lot more emphasis on their hard copies, but our paper still stood out among the competition.”
The other achievements included two third-place awards and five honorable mentions for the mail-in competition, as well as one first-place trophy, five third-place awards and three honorable mentions for the on-the-spot contests.
“I’m thrilled that 14 of our students won individual awards; that’s more than ever,” Stobbe said. “I’m a little disappointed that we didn’t win the whole thing, but I’m excited that so many of our kids participated.
“It’s not really just about winning; it’s about what all these kids are willing to do to improve their skill sets. These kids believe in themselves and proved it to the judges.”
Junior Spencer Lee, sports editor for The Feather, won the staff’s only first-place trophy for his performance in the Advanced Sports Writing competition. Although this was her first experience with sports writing, freshman Dana King participated in the Rookie Sports Writing contest and placed third.
“I was nervous and a little scared because I had never written a sports article before,” King said. “I was mainly shocked because I wasn’t expecting to win anything, and when Chelsea [Joy, ’09, editor-in-chief] told me, I did a little happy dance in the middle of the room. It made me feel like I was finally good enough to make a difference in our newspaper.”
Twenty-six members of The Feather staff attended and listened to lectures from journalism professionals from local media, including the Bee, KMPH Fox 26 , the Visalia Times-Delta, the Sanger Herald and the Madera Tribute.
“The speaker on music and entertainment writing [Fran Fried of the Bee] taught me the most,” Brett Henderson, ’12, said. “He taught us how to trace the history of music so we can relate to the music we’re writing about now. But I learned less at the other two workshops I went to.”
For more information on The Feather’s recent involvement in journalism organizations, visit the March 6 article, NSPA names The Feather Pacemaker finalist or e-mail Greg Stobbe.
