GILROY
– The news was too good to be true. When Elizabeth Dirks,
advisor for Gilroy High School’s student newspaper, first heard the
paper was a contender for the high school equivalent of the
Pulitzer Prize, she had her doubts.
By Lori Stuenkel
GILROY – The news was too good to be true. When Elizabeth Dirks, advisor for Gilroy High School’s student newspaper, first heard the paper was a contender for the high school equivalent of the Pulitzer Prize, she had her doubts.
The e-mail notification arrived in Dirks’ in-box last Thursday. She immediately double-checked the Web site of the National Student Press Association, co-sponsor of the award, to see The Free Press listed as a finalist for papers with fewer than 16 pages.
“Oh, my gosh, it’s almost too good to be true,” Dirks said. “I want to verify it.”
It’s not that the paper isn’t good, Dirks said. The prospect of winning such a prestigious award is just a little overwhelming.
“I’ll feel better once we get the confirmation in writing,” she said. The NSPA will send Dirks a written notice some time this week.
The National Pacemaker Award, co-sponsored by the NSPA and the Newspaper Association of America Foundation, is the nation’s highest honor for a high school newspaper. Each year, the award is given to 20 high schools out of hundreds across the nation that excel in the areas of: coverage and content, quality of writing and reporting, leadership on the opinion page, evidence of in-depth reporting, design, photography, art and graphics. The winner will be selected by members of the Washington Post staff and announced at the Fall National High School Journalism Convention in late November.
Simply being a finalist for the award is no small feat for The Free Press, which was little more than an after-school project produced by a handful of students when Dirks joined GHS three years ago.
“It was amazing that every single issue we put out, we just improved, improved, improved,” said 2003 GHS graduate Megan Stevens, who was involved with the paper before Dirks came along and was editor-in-chief the past two years. “The change was just dramatic. People started talking about it. The paper started making a name for itself.”
Stevens said she was excited about the award but is still trying to grasp the Pacemaker’s true significance.
“(I’m) just trying to understand how big of an honor it is to achieve this,” she said.
Dirks, who married in August and changed her surname from Baker-Chapman, is now hoping to take some students to the Washington, D.C., convention but is unsure whether the program can afford the trip. The newspaper staff normally attends a convention held in the spring on the West Coast.
