While Foothill students were enjoying a day of music and food at Air Guitar, four journalism students were competing at the Tri-County Journalism Education Association’s competition at California Lutheran University Friday afternoon.
At the competition, sophomores Kienna Kulzer and Allison Clark both received individual awards, and The Foothill Dragon Press won the award for the tri-county’s best news site for the third consecutive year.
“Fifteen schools, three counties, seventeen judges, thirty-six trophies, three speakers, fifteen advisors, and five staplers. Now I can have my life back,” said TCJEA President and newspaper adviser at Pacifica High School Mark Riley in a Facebook post Friday night that he gave the Dragon Press permission to use. “Exhausting but worth it. Fourteen of fifteen schools had at least one student take away something, whether a trophy or honorable mention certificate.”
Kulzer competed in the Features category beat out 30 other student journalists to win first place.
“Honestly, I wasn’t expecting it [the award] at all. I thought that I did well, but I didn’t think I would get first place! It was definitely a very nice surprise,” she said.
For her write-off, Kulzer listened to the director of the docudrama “The Path to 9/11” speak about how the Clinton adminsitration and other critics helped ban his movie from public view.
“I found his story really interesting. Before, I didn’t really realize that something like a docudrama could be completely censored in the United States.”
While Kulzer was competing, Clark was participating in Critical Review, a category that she had never tried before.
“Competing in a category I had no prior experience in was definitely a challenge, but being a news writer, and knowing what reviews normally sound like, I did the best I could,” Clark said.
Clark was shocked when she heard her name called as an Honorable Mention winner during the awards ceremony.
“When I found out I got Honorable Mention I was really surprised because some of the people in my group actually write reviews for their paper and I’ve never written one, so it was a real shock,” she said.
Journalism adviser Melissa Wantz has taken students to this competition every year since The Foothill Dragon Press began in 2009.
“This particular competition is valuable experience for Dragon Press reporters to work with a hard and fast deadline and to be evaluated by professionals in media,” Wantz said. “I’m pleased for Kienna and Allison to have placed so well against competitors from three counties.”
