Several Carmel High School student journalists earned individual Gold Circle Awards from the Columbia Scholastic Press Association (CSPA). The awards, which judge individual achievement in several different categories, were announced via e-mail from CSPA director Edmund Sullivan on Oct. 8, 2010. According to the CSPA website, “Gold Circle Awards are offered to recognize superior work by student journalists usually as individuals but sometimes as an entire staff working with either print or online media.”

The Carmel award-winners are as follows (students are currently on staff unless otherwise noted):

HiLite newspaper

First Place

• Daniel Li – Computer-generated art/illustration: two or more colors (“A Family-Free Thanksgiving”)

Third Place

• Audrey Bailey and Meredith Boyd – Sidebar writing (“Behind the Curtain”)
• Alex Mackall – Comic cartoons (“Swine Flu”)
• Sara Rogers – Informational graphics: A designed or art headline (“The Difference between Bonding and Bullying”)

Certificate of Merit

• Alex Mackall – Sports commentary (“Peyton’s political payday with new contract”)
• Rebecca Xu – Cartoon portfolio of work

Pinnacle yearbook

Certificate of Merit

• Staff – Informational graphics portfolio

Additionally, students who contributed to the HiLite Online website were recognized as winners from the CSPA. These awards were announced several months ago, but according to the CSPA, because the CSPA dates its award by the year they are given, they are recognized as 2010 winners.

Those winners are as follows:

HiLite Online

First Place

• Michelle Hu ‘10 – Online slideshow (“Student Activism”)

Second Place

• Michelle Hu ’10 and Emily Puterbaugh – Breaking news (“Funeral scheduled…”)
• Michelle Hu ’10 and Rosemary Boeglin ’10 – Secondary coverage (“Mediator determines…”)

Third Place

• Mike Jiang ’10 and Nishanth Samala ‘10 – Online design

A complete list of winners can be found at the CSPA website: http://cspa.columbia.edu/docs/contests-and-critiques/gold-circle-awards/recipients/2010-scholastic-circles.html