
DATE: Friday, June 6, 1997                  TAG: 9706060903
SECTION: DAILY BREAK             PAGE: E1   EDITION: FINAL 

SOURCE: STAFF REPORT 

                                            LENGTH:   84 lines

HARD-HITTING STORIES PUSH NEWSPAPERS TO NO. 1 SPOT

THE NEWS surprised Robin Sawyer, but it shouldn't have. She had heard it all before. Still, Sawyer shrieked into the telephone.

``We won,'' she echoed, taking a moment from the phone conversation to break the good news to her class.

Sawyer is the newspaper adviser at Manteo High School. She and her staff recently took first place for best overall newspaper in the 1997 High School Newspaper Writing and Graphics Contest. Sound to Sea, the school's paper, won the same distinction last year.

``The kids work hard. They work long hours,'' said Sawyer. ``We work weekends. We'll work on a Friday night until 11 o'clock. . . . You gotta do what you gotta do.''

What Sound to Sea does is cover hard-hitting issues that matter not only to students but also to the surrounding community. In December, the staff wrote about the leaky ceilings and mold growing in their classrooms. It helped bring Health Department inspectors to the school to investigate.

``It made a lot of people at our school realize something that they may not have realized before,'' said Jennifer Perciavalle, a senior. ``It made them realize that maybe it's the condition of the building that made them feel sick.''

Along with the overall first-place award, several Sound to Sea staffers, including Jennifer, won first place for their individual work. Seventeen students and three high school newspaper staffs won awards in the annual competition.

Shannon Lester, a senior at Salem High School in Virginia Beach, took first place for an editorial she wrote about Lee-Jackson-King Day.

``I was complaining about it one day,'' said Shannon, ``and somebody said, `Why don't you write about it?' '' So she did.

``Combining Lee-Jackson Day and King Day is a result of a shallow attempt to appease those who are weak-minded enough to be swooned by the misconception that King Day is a ``black'' holiday,'' wrote Shannon.

The contest is sponsored by The Virginian-Pilot and Norfolk State University's department of mass communications and journalism. Its goal is to recognize excellence in scholastic journalism.

Cash awards of $500, $300 and $100 go to the top three newspapers. The money can be used to purchase newspaper supplies and equipment.

Individual winners receive engraved plaques. ILLUSTRATION: Color photo

DREW WILSON/The Virginian-Pilot

Jennifer Perciavalle, foreground, is editor of Manteo High's

newspaper, the Sound of the Sea, which has won first place in the

high school newspaper contest two years in a row.

Graphic

CONTEST WINNERS

OVERALL

First: $500, Sound to Sea, Manteo High School

Second: $300, Falcon Press, Cox High School

Third: $100, The Knight's Herald, Currituck County High School