'Verde' gets Columbia press award
Palo Alto High School's student magazine, Verde, has been named one of the top eight student magazines in the nation. The recognition, in addition to other regional awards earned this year, is helping the three-year-old magazine emerge from the shadow of its more well-known sister publication, The Campanile, the school's century-old student newspaper.
The latest award -- known as a "Gold Crown" -- comes from the Columbia Scholastic Press Association and recognizes the magazine's 2000-2001 staff, who work together to put out 80-page quarterly magazine. The CSPA announced the Verde victory at its annual conference in New York. Forty-four Paly journalism students, including 10 Verde staff members, attended the conference under the guidance of journalism teacher Esther Wojcicki.
The CSPA gave Verde another reason to celebrate, giving three certificates of merit (equivalent to 4th place nationally) to Verde photographer and June 2001 Paly graduate Rachel Palmer for her work on last year's issues.
The Gold Crown is Verde's first under adviser Paul Kandell, who came to Paly in August 2001 after four years advising an award-winning newspaper and journalism Web site at San Francisco's Lowell High School.
Kandell credits last year's editors with providing the energy and talent to produce the award-winning issues. More importantly, he says, they set the stage for even more impressive work by this year's staff.
The magazine is also bringing in top honors in regional competitions. The 22-page February 2002 cover package -- about the Paly community's response to war over the past century -- was recognized as the best feature story in Northern California in a contest sponsored by the Northern California Press Women, a state affiliate of the National Federation of Press Women, and the San Francisco Press Club Scholarship Trust.
In researching the story, staff members dug through years of dusty documents and interviewed Paly graduates with links to World War I, World War II (including an internment camp survivor), the Korean War, the Vietnam War, and the current war on terrorism. The package also includes reporting from the staff's visit to a local mosque, and from conversations with Muslim students, PAUSD middle school officials, current Palo Alto peace activists and Paly graduate and anti-war icon Joan Baez (speaking in a four-page interview), among others.
Cynthia Gorney, former Washington Post reporter and assistant professor at UC Berkeley's Graduate School of Journalism, was the judge who picked the Verde story to win the $250 prize and the opportunity to move on to national competition.
The Verde staff will divide up that money among its 18 members, but senior Matt Farrell, who works as Verde's technical editor, will get his own check for $250 because his Fall 2001 story on rock climbing won the contest's sports category.
