The Boiling Point has won top national honors in journalism competitions for work published during the 2013-14 school year, including its second-ever Pacemaker Award nomination from the National Scholastic Press Association (NSPA), the largest high school journalism organization in the world.

In addition, five students won Honorable Mention in the NSPA’s Multimedia News Story of the Year competition for their reporting of last year’s Color War.  Only six stories were recognized in this category in the entire United States.

The paper also won top awards from the Quill and Scroll International Honor Society; the Columbia Scholastic Press Association (CSPA); the Jewish Scholastic Press Association (JSPA); and the American Jewish Press Association (AJPA), where it is the only high school news source to compete.

From Quill and Scroll, it received its third-ever International First Place Award — one of only 25 in the country – for the entire year’s work, which was led by Editor-in-Chief Tamar Willis ‘14. The contest was judged by the American Society of News Editors.

“I enjoyed reading every page and read with a dictionary in hand and learned a great deal,” wrote one of the Quill and Scroll judges at the end of his lengthy evaluation of the Boiling Point.  “What a fun paper to evaluate.  I have a former student who edits a commercial Jewish newspaper and I will hold your paper against any professional I have seen.  What a wonderful bunch of students to work with – much good luck in the coming year.”

The Multimedia Story of the Year award was shared by videographer Rachel Sentchuk; Goldie Fields, Dorelle Nahmany and Sarah Elspas, who took photographs; and Jonah Kaye, who wrote the story.  It was the fourth time in five years that the NSPA has honored the Boiling Point in that category.

“Since I was part of Color War, I was part of what was happening, so that made it easier to capture everything,” said Rachel.  “Cutting a two-day event into two minutes was very hard since we had hours of video.  But we tried to get the most exciting parts into the video so it would be more fun to watch.”

Torah Editor Noah Rothman was honored in the AJPA’s 33rd annual Simon J. Rockower competition for Excellence in Jewish journalism.  Shalhevet competes in the category of papers with circulation up to 14,999.

Noah won the Boris J. Smolar Award for Enterprise and Investigative Reporting, Second Prize, for his coverage of the controversy over whether girls should be allowed to wear tefillin during school davening.  There were four different stories, including how it is handled at other Orthodox high schools and a Q-and-A with the mother of the eighth-grade girl who started the discussion by asking whether she’d be allowed to wear tefillin if she enrolled.

“I just did what had to be done,” said Noah. “I got really into the story and thought there were multiple sides of the story to be told.”

For the same coverage, he also won first prize in the JSPA’s Second Annual Jewish Scholastic Journalism Awards, winning an internship at the Jewish Journal.  The contest is judged by Jewish Journal editors.

Second prize in the JSPA contest went to Eric Bazak and Margo Feuer for their story “Exodus: Jewish Population Wanes in South Africa.”  Eric wrote the story and Margo designed a double-page layout that included a timeline of when Shalhevet families had left for the U.S.

“This article is incredibly well-researched,” wrote the judges. “Every time you wonder something while reading it, the answer pops up in the next paragraph. The beautiful layout not only complements the story nicely, taking a long piece and making it easier to read, it actually adds value.”

Also, Tamar Willis received a Certificate of Merit in the  CSPA’s 2014 Gold Circle Awards’s General Feature Category for her story titled “What’s in a Pseudonym,” about seniors changing their Facebook names to hide their pages from college admissions departments.

Ten schools nationwide were nominated for the Pacemaker in Shalhevet’s category, which is for large-format papers with 17 or more pages. Five were named winners at the NSPA’s annual fall awards ceremony in Washington, D.C., Nov. 8.

Boiling Point staff did not attend because much of the meeting, including the awards assembly, was held on Shabbat.  It also didn’t win, remaining a nominated finalist as it had in 2012.

“Even being a finalist is a huge honor, especially since we are competing against large schools with big journalism programs, classes, all kinds of time and resources that we don’t have,” said Boiling Point adviser Mrs. Joelle Keene.

“Last year’s staff under Tamar was among the hardest working and creative we’ve ever had.  They also had a fabulous time doing it.”

According to the NSPA website, Newspaper Pacemakers are awarded based on “coverage and content, quality of writing and reporting, leadership on the opinion page, evidence of in-depth reporting, design, photography, art and graphics.”