With the equivalent of two Pulitzers on their wall, Gilroy High
School student journalists are poised to take their craft to the
next level.
With the equivalent of two Pulitzers on their wall, Gilroy High School student journalists are poised to take their craft to the next level.
Free Press staffers recently returned from Washington, D.C., bringing with them their second Pacemaker – an award bestowed by the National Scholastic Press Association upon the nation’s best high school newspapers. The Association selected Gilroy High’s paper from 339 entrants and 56 finalists as one of 15 winners in the 16 or fewer pages category.
“The kids were just really ecstatic,” said newspaper advisor Veronica Andrade.
She and five students, including last year’s editor-in-chief, Jacob Gonzales, went to the conference already psyched that they had been selected as finalists, Andrade said. But sitting in a room packed with 6,000 students from across the nation, waiting for the judges to move onto the grand prizes after making their way through the winners of various subcategories, Andrade and her students could barely contain themselves, she said.
“It was so suspenseful, so nerve wracking” she said.
In the end, Gilroy High accomplished what Andrade, Gonzales and their staff set out to do the first day of last year. They aimed for the 2009 Pacemaker in each of the six editions they published.
Applicants were judged on things like coverage and content, quality of writing and reporting, and layout and design. The school was also a Pacemaker finalist in 2003 and 2004, and won the award in 2003.
“We were, to say the least, really shocked!” Andrade wrote in an e-mail to colleagues. “The competition was fierce.”
Last year’s editions covered an array of local and global issues, including campus riots, high school exit exams, an English teacher accused of slapping a student, the historical 2008 presidential election and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
“We wanted to cover the big stories,” Gonzales said, adding that his and Andrade’s goals for taking the paper to the next level meshed seamlessly. “We were on the same page from day one. We wanted (the paper) to become more professional, with not as much focus on sensationalism. We wanted it to be aesthetically pleasing.”
Free Press staffers celebrated with a round of arcade games at ESPN Zone and a trip to the new Newseum, a D.C. museum dedicated to the history and changing face of the news industry.
“The kids left really inspired,” Andrade said. “It’s nice to have your work recognized by your peers. It really solidified my first year of advising.”
The paper will continue shooting for the Pacemaker in future years but also will focus on moving online, Andrade said.
