Irvine High School journalism students took home 1st Place in sweepstakes and 1st Place in the California All-Star mail-in newspaper contest at the Southern California Journalism Education Association (SCJEA) State Write-Offs, recently held at Rancho Dominguez Prep School in Long Beach.
Twenty-eight schools and more than 280 students attended the annual event. Students competing in sweepstakes had to place in the top 10 at the county level to qualify.
Students contributing to the sweepstakes win included Brenda Nguyen and Sahil Patne, first place in editorial and sports writing, respectively; Mehr Bawa and Brian Zhou and news writing; Michelle Ma and Claire Song in feature writing. Tiffany Chhuor placed in critical review, Joyce Hsiou in newspaper layout and Hansika Sundaresan in novice news writing. Mona Chahine, Tommy Che and Paul Song placed in photography.
Overall, 16 El Vaquero staffers participated in both sweepstakes and non-sweepstakes categories.
Rounding out the top five schools was Northwood, 2nd Place; San Dieguito, 3rd Place; Troy, 4th Place and Walnut, 5th Place.
Irvine High has won this on-the-spot contest seven other times: in 2000, 2007, 2008, 2009, 2011, 2012 and 2015.