Casa Grande High School grabbed first place honors in nine of the 14 categories, including overall excellence, at the 63rd annual Redwood Empire Excellence in Journalism ceremony Thursday honoring the best of the North Bay's high school journalists.
Since 2000, only two schools have won the award for overall excellence: Casa Grande and Rancho Cotate. Casa Grande has owned the category since 2009.
"We really love our paper and we put in a lot of hard work," said junior Itxaso Garay, the incoming editor-in-chief of the Gaucho Gazette. "We really love reporting stories. The chemistry in the class is great."
Garay personally nabbed awards for editorial writing, feature story, as well as feature, news and sports photography.
The outstanding journalist award went to Santa Rosa High School's editor-in-chief, senior Mikaela Beloberk.
Beloberk has written columns about the Occupy movement and Somali pirates but said her most memorable might have been telling the story of a Santa Rosa teacher who watched through his New York City classroom window as the Sept. 11 attacks unfolded.
"It was a really incredible process just talking to him," she said.
About 120 area high school journalism students and their advisors attended Thursday's luncheon and ceremony sponsored by The Press Democrat.
The following students won first place awards:
Advertising: Paige Abrams, Santa Rosa
Column: Aaron Miller, Healdsburg
Design and layout: Casa Grande
Editorial: Arianna Maysonave, Sonoma Valley
Feature Story: Itxaso Garay, Adam Lundquist, Lucy Slavin, Kelsey Matzen, Shawna Brown, Simone van Ommerern-Akelman, Casa Grande
In-depth Reporting: Samira Bokaie, Ashley Slack, Brittany Burnett, Simone van Ommeren-Akelman, Ashley Moffett, Lucy Slavin, Shawna Brown, TJ Grayson, Casa Grande
News Story: Kelsey Matzen and Ashley Moffett, Casa Grande
Photography-Feature: Alicia Soto, Santa Rosa
Photography-News:Itxaso Garay, Casa Grande
Photography-Sports: Itxaso Garay, Casa Grande
Review: Natalie Koppen, Montgomery
Sports Feature: Joey Ellicott, Adam Lundquist, Casa Grande
Sports News Story: Wyatt Hoagland, Healdsburg
Overall Excellence: Casa Grande Gaucho Gazette
Overall Champion: Casa Grande
Outstanding Journalist: Mikaela Beloberk, Santa Rosa
Staff Writer Kerry Benefield writes an education blog at extracredit.blogs.pressdemocrat.com. She can be reached at 526-8671 or kerry.benefield@pressdemocrat.com.
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