"The mother looks deep into the soul of the man that ended
her daughter's life and searches for her faith."
Such powerful language helped senior Greg Stitt of the Granite
Bay High School
Gazette win second place in news
features in Columbia Scholastic Press Association's 2007
Scholastic Circle awards.
Former GBHS High School Student Sentenced to 11 Years in Prison relays the story of a former student, Kourtney Ketchersid, killed by another
former student, Joshua Bauser, when he ran a red light while driving drunk. Stitt's writing is full of detail, from 82
mph, the speed at which Bauser's car smashed into Ketchersid's and ended her
life, to the Bible verse quoted on her gravestone. He also captured great quotes:
"There's always going to be something missing," said Kourtney's mother, Lori. "Whether it's going to dinner and you make
reservations -- you make it for four now instead of five. It's the little things."
The CSPA Scholastic Circle
awards cover 75 categories, from writing to photography and
design. The association typically
whittles down more than 10,000 entries to about 1,000 award-winners.
The Gazette won more than a half-dozen of those awards this year.
It's not the first time the newspaper has placed well. It won the Pacemaker award for the1999-2000
school year and was a finalist in three other years; it was a four-time winner
of the Gallup Award sponsored by Quill and Scroll; and it won a CSPA Gold Crown
in 2004 (it won a silver this year).
Other winning Gazette stories included:
Coach's Pay Increased by Extra Fees -- an
excellent
investigative piece about the cheerleading coach asking squad members
for an
extra $200 choreography fee to supplement her official stipend. The
story reports both sides of the issue, that of underpaid coaches who
need the extra money to
dedicate the time to the team, and of frustrated students tired of
paying extra
to participate. The story placed second
in the news writing category.
Off the Radar -- received an honorable mention for the
in-depth news/feature story category. The story delves into the underworld of ecstasy,
using two GBHS seniors as anonymous sources and describing a rave they
attended as observers. Authors Dena
Fehrenbacher and Nick Meuller frame the students' first-hand experiences with a
vivid portrayal of the drug's addictive qualities and lethal consequences.
Also, 21 Students Caught Drinking at Prom by Jameson Korb
and Sabrina Vogeley, won 3rd Place in news writing; Band Bash by
Michele Petros won 3rd
place for photo stories; and Where is the Love? by Lauren
Grubaugh won an honorable mention for personal opinion pieces.
Please send us pdf files of your own work, award-winning or not, so
we can share them here. Tell us how you reported the story (or captured
it, if a photograph) and anything you learned in the
process.
