The Smoke Signal takes home the gold
PV journalists win awards for their work on their school newspaper
It was a big week for The Smoke Signal.
The annual Garden State Scholastic Press Association (GSSPA) Conference held on Monday, Oct. 29 at Rutgers marked The Smoke Signal three-peat of earning the Distinguished Journalism Award for New Jersey’s Division B. Among the other awards won were two more overall titles: the Distinguished Online Journalism Award and the Online Excellence Award. The online awards are statewide and not based on division.
In addition to the aforementioned awards, adviser to The Smoke Signal Mr. Bill Rawson was honored with the Golden Quill Award — a lifetime achievement award given to individuals who have made substantial contributions to the growth and quality of scholastic journalism throughout the state.
Currently, The Smoke Signal Editorial Board is in the process of totalling the individual awards we won. As of now, we have received Division B first places in Sports Writing for “The start of the long gold line” by Madison Gallo and Trey Herenda, In-depth Reporting for our mental health focused print edition by The Smoke Signal Staff, Art/Illustration for the cover art of our mental health print edition by Kyle Levanduski, Photography for “Girls Soccer: PV’s season comes to an end” by Victoria Donofrio, and Newswriting for “Florida shooting affects local community” by Kayla Barry.
Stay tuned for a complete list of all awards won to come later this week.
From Thursday, Nov. 1 to Sunday, Nov. 4, Rawson, Gallo (Editor in Chief), Barry (Assistant Editor in Chief), Rachel Cohen (Staff Editor), Josh DeLuca (Sports Editor), Noah Schwartz (Sports Editor), and Molly Heintze (Photo Editor) travelled to Chicago for the JEA/NSPA Fall National High School Convention of Journalism.
At the convention, we competed in write-off contests in which we were given a prompt, given a test, or listened to a speaker and then were tasked to take the test or write an article about the given topic within 80 minutes. Barry, DeLuca, and Schwartz took home Honorable Mentions in Feature Writing, Newspaper editing, and Sports Writing, respectively.
