Casa Grande wins top journalism award

Casa Grande High School received the award for Overall Excellence at the 62nd Annual Redwood Empire Excellence in Journalism Contest last week.

The Gaucho Gazette's staff won first place in 10 of the event's 14 categories, including in-depth reporting, news photography, feature story and design and layout.

The Casa journalists earned 125 points; the next closest school, Maria Carillo, earned 49 points; Santa Rosa High scored 31 points.

The contest, sponsored by The Press Democrat, was held at the newspaper's printing plant in Rohnert Park. Students ate pizza and salad while seated at tables between two long rows of machines that place advertising inserts into each day's edition. The students also took tours of the plant and its presses.

Individual awards went to the following:

Advertising: 1st place – Johanna Fleischman; 3rd place - Johanna Fleischman, Elvis Wong and Suzanne McNamara.

Column writing: 1st place - Macile Dietrick.

Feature story: 1st place - Camille Gasser, Kelsey Matzen, T.J. Grayson; Maggie Pieper.

In-depth reporting: 1st place – Samira Bokaie, Caitlin Griffin, Ashley Moffett, Camille Gasser, Kelsey Matzen, Ashley Slack. 3rd place – Kathleen Schaefer, Johanna Fleischman, Ashley Mofett, Maggie Pieper, Amy Jin.

News Story: 1st place – Gabriella Fleischman, Kelsey Matzen. 3rd place – Johanna Fleischman.

Photography, Feature:1st place – Forrest Wang.

Photography, News:1st place – Johanna Fleischman.

Review: 1st place – Nate Hromalik. 3rd place – Itxaso Garay.

Sports Feature: 2nd place – Samira Bokaie, Nate Hromalik, Shawna Brown, Elvis Wong, Camialle Gasser, Emily Welter.

Sports News: 2nd place – Joey Ellicott.

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