Harker journalism students spent Nov. 19-23 in Washington, D.C., attending the Journalism Education Association and National Scholastic Press Association’s Fall High School Journalism Convention, where the Winged Post newspaper received an NSPA Pacemaker award.

The upper school’s Winged Post newspaper was awarded the Pacemaker for the 2018-19 school year, which was the third Pacemaker in journalism department history, following a 2016 win for the upper school news website, Aquila, and the Winged Post’s first Pacemaker win in 2008. The Winged Post was one of just 19 school publications chosen from among 220 finalists. Aquila was awarded sixth place in Best of Show in the Website category.

Individual awards included an honorable mention for Social Justice Reporting for senior Mahika Halepete’s story on the refugee crisis, and another honorable mention in Local Climate Change Reporting for a story covering the Green New Deal by juniors Arya Maheshwari, Varsha Rammohan and Michael Eng, and sophomore Lucy Ge.

Honorable mentions were also won for 2019 Digital Story of the Year for coverage of the California Democratic Convention by seniors Eric Fang and Kathy Fang, and juniors Arushi Saxena and Anna Vazhaeparambil, and a story by Kathy Fang and senior Jessie Wang on biology teacher Thomas Artiss’ beekeeping hobby.

See more stories on the visit to Washington, D.C., at Harker Aquila.