Back in-person again, the 55th annual Hawai’i High School Journalism Awards showed off Thursday the next generation of media makers and storytellers in the state via a friendly competition.
The event was held in the executive dining room of UH Mānoa’s Campus Center, co-sponsored by the UH Journalism Program as well as the Hawai’i Publishers Association.
“For a good society, a functioning healthy society, we absolutely need journalists and really talented people who would come and learn how to do this,” said Hye-ryeon Lee, chair of the School of Communication and Information, the school within which the Journalism program resides. “So it was wonderful to see these young students, you know, care about this as a possibility, as a career or as a learning opportunity.”
The dining room was packed with representatives from both public and private schools in the state, and the energetic crowd clapped and cheered for the presentation of about 90 awards, across about 20 categories. There also were several cash prizes for the high-school Journalism programs, plus random drawings for individuals who received Starbucks gift cards.
“These students are doing excellent work,” said Jay Hartwell, president of the Hawai’i Publishers Association, who presided over the award luncheon, recognizing that in a statewide forum, where they’re competing against other schools, gives them something to strive for.
The judging process involved three judges evaluating entries in each of the categories and providing written evaluations of every work. Each school was permitted one submission per category.
“We are all in different schools,” said Shane Kaneshiro, a senior from McKinley High School. “But it doesn’t mean we have to be separated. … We can connect on many levels to have communities to bring ideas to different schools.”
