Kennedy, Corona del Mar Win Top Honors in Times’ High School Contest

COSTA MESA —  Student newspapers at John F. Kennedy and Corona del Mar high schools took top honors Wednesday in the “best issue” categories at the sixth annual Times Orange County High School Journalism Awards competition.

In a ceremony Wednesday evening at The Times offices in Costa Mesa, high schools from throughout Orange County were recognized for outstanding journalism during the 1990-91 school year. First-place student winners received $250 and the two winning newspapers received $1,000 each.

John F. Kennedy High School’s student newspaper, the Shamrock, was judged to have the best issue in publications with up to four pages. The judges recognized its “clean layout, good use of reefers and drop quotes, and a good choice of Page One stories.”

Judges awarded Corona del Mar’s Trident newspaper the prize for “best issue” in the four-pages-or-more category. They said the paper had an impressive “use of graphics, including boxes, benday screens, pie charts and illustrations.”

Two Corona del Mar student reporters won double honors with first-place awards for a news story and an editorial article, both of which were co-authored. Judges said the news story by Aaron Edelberg and Peter Rice about proposed cutbacks in the state budget was a “well-researched, well-reported story.”

Other individual top prizes went to Karla Rogue of Orange High School in the features category; Scott Silberman of Irvine High School for a feature photograph; Jennifer Mahr of Sunny Hills for cartoon illustration and Betsy Burbridge of Orange High School for sportswriting.