By Vivien Mao

Both the Chronicle and the Spectrum won the top prize in high school journalism for last year’s issues.

Twenty members of the Chronicle and Vox staffs were in Kansas City for the awards and to attend workshops at the NSPA/JEA fall convention. 

At the awards ceremony Nov. 13, the Spectrum won its first Pacemaker, and the Chronicle won its fifth and second in two years. The Pacemaker is given by the National Scholastic Press Association to the top high school and middle school newspapers in the world.

The Chronicle also won third place Best in Show for newspapers longer than 17 pages, and Chronicle online won first place Best in Show for small schools. The Spectrum was given second place Best in Show for middle schools. Big Red was given ninth place Best in Show for a Special Edition of a newspaper. Vox Populi was also award eighth place Best in Show for a yearbook between 275 to 324 pages.

The Ryan White Excellence in Journalism Awards, given by the Journalism Education Association to individuals who have written well-researched health features in order to inform others of health problems and dangers, were also presented to three Chronicle alumnae. Anna Etra ’10 and Michelle Nostratian ’10 won first and second place for editorial writing and Allegra Tepper ’10 was awarded second place for feature writing in last year’s Chronicle.

Sophia Penske ’13 and Sam Gasperd ’13 also won a Design of the Year award for a design from the middle school literary magazine, Tenth Muse.

During the convention, several students entered the Write-Off Contests. Alex Leichenger ’11 was awarded Excellent for Sports Writing, Alice Phillips ’11 Excellent for News Editing and Headline Writing and Alex Ravan ’13 was awarded Excellent for Computer Design.