Community High School

The Communicator’s Day of Victory

The Communicator staff and adviser Tracy Rosewarne were eagerly sprawled across the Michigan Interscholastic Press Association (MIPA) ballroom floor eating donuts while the awards were announced from a podium. Other middle and high school newspapers, yearbooks and teachers looked disgustingly on as the Communicator received award after award—clapping and yelling as every few Division Four results yielded a name with “Community High” next to it.

As they sat down in chairs, Emma Rand (2nd place, Editorial cartoon) found a MIPA sheet. “Que pasa?” a writer had underlined. “The blonde across the aisle that keeps checking me out,” the intelligent newspaper student had replied.

Our staff had no time to think about such trivial things. If the ghost of crocodile hunter Steve Erwin had swooped eerily around him, John Wallington (3rd place, Photospread) would have remained focused on the difficult task at hand: celebrating each win.

With fifteen awards, the exhausted staff took a break for lunch at the All-You-Can-Eat Chinese buffet. As stunned waiters looked on, we conquered the food with a voraciousness only an award-winning newspaper would have. Joe Stapleton (honorable mention, Sports Feature Story. 2nd place, Sports Page/Spread) helped Ezra Schaffer fill an entire plate with red and orange jello cubes and built a fort which they later ate. Paul Princen (3rd place, Editorial Opinion Page/Spread) mooched off everyone’s plates.

With some good fortune in our past, we searched for advice for the future. We opened some cookies. “The greatest possession a man can have is a sympathetic wife,” said one belonging to Glenn Tucker (3rd place, Personality Profile). Blythe Moreland (3rd place, Information Graphic) was pleased to read that,"You will be advanced socially with little effort,” and Quinn Burrell (3rd place, Comic Strip) read, “You are sociable and entertaining.”

Filled, we walked back to MIPA for a second round of awards. Quinn was sociable and entertaining.

Finally, the long-awaited Spartan awards were announced, and the Communicator was pleased to receive one. Editor-in-Chief Joe Stapleton was also pleased, but made sure to accept the award with dignity. He kissed the award and announced, “THIS IS MY PROM DATE!”

The Communicator did not experience total domination: We were soundly beat when the Wildcat Roar (better known for the article “Boy Saves Trapped Goose") was the only web paper that received the highly-coveted Spartan award, which Dylan Cinti (2nd place, News Analysis, 1st place, Bylined Opinion Article, 2nd place, Diversity Coverage, Honorable mention, Informative Feature, 3rd place, Editorial Opinion Page/Spread, 1st and 2nd place, Editorial) was shaken by.

Out of obnoxious prose form, here are the award-winners from the 2006-2007 Individual Newspaper Contest:

News Story—1st Place, Matthew Hampel
News Story—3rd Place, Luis Leon
News Analysis—2nd Place, Dylan Cinti
Editorial—1st Place, Staff
Editorial—2nd Place, Staff
Bylined Opinion Article—1st Place, Dylan Cinti
Bylined Opinion Article—2nd Place, Paul Princen
Editorial Cartoon—2nd Place, Emma Rand
Comic Strip—3rd Place, Quinn Burrell
Illustration—Honorable Mention, Quinn Burrell
Information Graphic—3rd Place, Blythe Moreland
Advertising Layout—Honorable Mention, Luis Leon
In-Depth Feature—1st Place, Alyson Halpert
In-Depth Feature—2nd Place, Alyson Halpert
Informative Feature—Honorable Mention, Dylan Cinti
Human Interest Feature—3rd Place, Luis Leon
Personality Profile—1st Place, Josyln Young
Personality Profile—3rd Place, Glenn Tucker
Diversity Coverage—1st Place, Luis Leon
Diversity Coverage—2nd Place, Dylan Cinti
Sports Feature Story—1st Place, Luke King
Sports Feature Story—Honorable Mention, Joe Stapleton
Front Page/Magazine Style—1st Place, Ben Haddix and John Wallington
Front Page/Magazine Style—3rd Place, Ben Haddix and John Wallington
Editorial Opinion Page/Spread—3rd Place, Dylan Cinti and Paul Princen
Feature Page/Spread—1st Place, John Wallington, Zelda Moran and Courtney Berry
Sports Page/Spread—2nd Place, John Wallington and Joe Stapleton
Entertainment Page/Spread—3rd Place, Alyson Halpert
Photo Story—1st place, John Wallington, Ben Haddix and Allison Correll
Photo Story—Honorable Mention, John Wallington and Joe Stapleton

Communicator staff received awards in the on-site contests:

News Writing—Honorable Mention, Erik Levinsohn
Editorial—1st Place, Dylan Cinti and Galaan Dafa
Carry-in Photo—Honorable Mention, Ben Haddix
Feature—2nd Place, Alyson Halpert
Special Projects—Honorable Mention, Staff

We also received the Spartan award for the paper and a gold award for this website.