The Shalhevet Boiling Point won five national awards in the 2011 Quill and Scroll International Writing/Photo Contest, and won its first-ever website award at the annual spring convention of the National Scholastic Press Association in Anaheim barely a week later.
It was the second year in a row the paper won five Quill and Scroll awards, and included the paper’s first-ever prize for photography. Sophomore Emilie Benyowitz won for her picture of Shalhevet’s choir arriving to sing at the dedication of the Los Angeles Holocaust Memorial and Monument in the November issue.
Leila Miller, current Outside News Editor and incoming Editor-in-Chief, won for her story on a Modern Orthodox symposium, led by three local rabbis who discussed sensitive topics within Judaism. Her story won in the news category where just seven percent of 362 entries were selected winners.
Senior Staff Columnist Jenny Newman won the Boiling Point’s second award in general columns for her article criticizing Time Magazine’s coverage of Israel. Just under 6 percent out of 343 entries won in this category.
Features Editor Rachel Lester won two national awards. In the most competitive category, Features, she won for a story on Facebook security, and in the In-depth Individual reporting category for her story about Jewish life on college campuses, titled “Life outside the bubble,” In this category there were only 11 winners were selected nationwide.
“We are competing against the largest, most prestigious and best-funded journalism programs in the country in these contests,” faculty Advisor Joelle Keene said proudly. “We have an unbelievably hard-working staff and it’s very exciting when we see that we can be judged with the best in the country even though we’re such a small school.”
Editor-in-Chief Zev Hurwitz agreed that the whole staff deserved credit.
“It’s a team effort,” said Zev. “We’re really happy these people won, but I’m still happy with the entire staff. When everyone works together people put out their best work and Quill and Scroll recognized it.”
In Anaheim, the paper’s website, www.shalhevetboilingpoint.com, was awarded fifth place “Best in Show,” meaning it was the fifth best of websites who entered the contest on-site. The convention hosted hundreds of the top high school journalism programs in the country.
At the same convention, Opinion Editor Ari Feuer earned a rating “Excellent,” the second-highest designation, in an on-site contest to write an editorial in just 45 minutes. That put him in the top 10 percent of students who had entered.
Ssked how she motivated students, Mrs. Keene sai, “Stories have so many angles; every fact you get raises more questions about facts unknown. All stories — all the facts in the world — exist in a context. The more you know about something, the more you realize you don’t know, the more you realize you need to know to fully understand it.”
