Three members of the Carmel High School HiLite newspaper staff earned recognition from the National Scholastic Press Association (NSPA) in that organization’s annual contest to award individual achievement.

Junior Rebecca Xu was one of only five finalists in the Editorial Cartoon of the Year competition while junior Lauren Burdick and senior Michelle Hu teamed up to be one of three finalists in the Story of the Year multimedia category. All work was from the 2008-09 school year.

Xu’s editorial cartoon, titled “The Next Step,” coincided with the 2008 Presidential election and depicted a montage of images from Abraham Lincoln to Martin Luther King, Jr. to Barack Obama. To see her cartoon on the HiLite Web site, click here: https://hilite.org/core/archives/2230. To see her work, along with the work of the other finalists, go to the NSPA’s Web site: http://studentpress.org/nspa/winners/cartoon09.html.

Burdick and Hu teamed up to cover the ongoing teacher contract negotiations at Carmel Clay Schools. Their coverage included stories, photos and videos, both in print and online, to fully explore the issue. The list of finalists is here: http://studentpress.org/nspa/winners/story09.html.

Winners in each of these categories will be announced at the fall JEA/NSPA National Convention in Washington DC from Nov. 12 to 15.