Harker’s journalism program saw many successes during the spring semester, most recently with the TALON yearbook and Winged Post newspaper winning first place in the Journalism Education Association Northern California’s Best of the West awards in their respective categories, with the news website Harker Aquila taking second place in the website category. TALON also won a total of 14 Publication Awards in various categories, including first and third place in Yearbook Student Life Spread, second place in Yearbook Sports Spread, first place in Yearbook Cover Design and first and third place in Yearbook Clubs/Organizations Spread. Individually, recent graduates Yifan Li ’25 and Chayce Milheim ’25 were recognized 11 times and 6 times, respectively.
Other JEA NorCal Publication Awards claimed by Harker included an Honorable Mention for rising junior Heather Wang and Charlize Wang ‘25 as well as three Digital Media wins: rising senior Lily Shi, earning second place in Digital Media News Video; rising seniors Samuel Tong and Charlie Wang, placing third in Digital Media News Video and Harker Aquila in Digital Media Live Coverage, where it was the only winner for its coverage of the 2024 presidential election.
In April, Harker also took top honors at the JEA/NSPA National High School Spring Convention’s Best of Show competitions, where the Winged Post took third place in the Newspaper category, TALON won third in Yearbook and Harker Aquila placed fifth in Online. The 2024 TALON yearbook also made Harker history as the first edition of the yearbook to win a Pacemaker award from the National Scholastic Press Association, recognizing it as among “the best of the best.”
The Winged Post’s front-page Harker Day spread resulted in another Harker first, winning a national first-place award in design from in the National High School Communications Contest, held by the National Federation of Press Women. The page, created by editor-in-chief Katerina Matta ’25 and managing editor Young Min ‘25, placed first in Single Page Layout.
Finally, five students received awards in the JEA’s National Student Media Contests, with rising junior Leah Krupnik receiving Superior Submission in Commentary Writing, rising junior Claire Tian receiving Excellent Submission in Feature Writing, rising senior Suhani Gupta winning Excellent Submission in Review Writing, rising junior Sarah Wang winning Excellent Submission in Literary Magazine: Illustration and rising senior Eva Cheng winning Honorable Mention in Newswriting.
