Hear The Roar: Coronado High School’s newspaper nets win
The announcement made the entire table of Coronado High School students gasp Monday.
"Second place, Green Valley High School," said award presenter Mike Hengel, editor of the Las Vegas Review-Journal, which has hosted the Clark County High School Journalism Awards for 36 years.
For the past eight years, The InvestiGator at Henderson’s Green Valley campus had won the top prize. That winning streak ended Monday at the Suncoast in Summerlin. But would key competitor, Coronado’s The Roar newspaper, finish first?
During the ceremony covering 32 categories of competition, Coronado’s newspaper staff clapped for their quintuplet of first-place awards in page design, news writing, opinion writing, editorial cartoon and advertising. But they erupted out of their chairs at Hengel’s five words on the winner of best newspaper in a standard format:
"First place, Coronado High School."
Coronado co-editor and senior Taylor Woodford couldn’t believe it. After four years on staff, all the work at the quarterly publication paid off.
"We spent weekends together," she said of staff at the Henderson school’s newspaper.
"There were tears, breakdowns," added co-editor and junior Laekyn Kelley, noting that "students never used to know we had a newspaper."
Staff made a point to change that with thorough coverage on topics such as vandalism early in the school year, they said. Over one November weekend, hooded figures climbed the school wall, hacked down courtyard trees, sprayed the school’s cougar mural with paintballs and stuffed rubber cement in door locks. The school offered a reward for information on the vandals, who have not yet been identified.
The morning the vandalism was discovered, reporter Stephen Boyd interviewed janitors and school staff who were first on the scene.
"He was pushy," Kelley said. "He talked to school cops who in the beginning didn’t want to say a thing."
And that’s what journalists need to do, focus a critical eye on the establishment, said Clark County School District Superintendent Dwight Jones in a short speech before awards commenced. A free press serves a vital purpose in democracy, he said.
"But with great power comes great responsibility," Jones said. "As a journalist, you will have tremendous power."
Contact reporter Trevon Milliard at tmilliard@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-0279.
See the complete list of winners.
