Senior Isaac Rosenthal won a superior rating in the sports write-off at the National High School Journalism Convention in Phoenix, Arizona in April.  He was one of only two students to win the highest award in that category.

Seven Venice students attended the convention from April 16 to 19 and stayed in the elegant Wyndham Hotel in downtown Phoenix: the two editor-in-chiefs, Rosenthal and Rahel Abebe, Managing Editor Crisalys Vasquez, Features Editor Olivia Gauthier, Opinion Editor Alison Hahm and assistant editors Joy and Holly Minnoy.  All seven participated in write-off competitions.  About 2,700 students attended the national convention.

            The student journalists, along with Adviser Nancy Zubiri, attended workshops on writing, photography, editing and lay-out design.  They also participated in student dances in the evenings.  The group ate dinner at several restaurants and visited local sites such as Mill Street, by the gigantic campus of Arizona State University in nearby Tempe.

            Staff members from the Oarsman have attended the convention annually for the past six years, traveling to different cities each time such as San Francisco, Anaheim, San Diego, Seattle, Wash. and Denver, Colo.  They have won awards at five of the six conventions.

            The young journalists were inspired by ideas they heard at different sessions.

The journalism students raised funds for the trip through numerous activities, including selling toasted bagels at nutrition on Thursdays.

All Venice students are welcome to work on the school newspaper, which has been published at Venice since 1914. Students must take journalism in order to be part of the staff. They need to advise their counselor that they want to take journalism in order to get into the class.  The class counts as an academic elective for UCs and Cal States.  Currently about 40 students are part of the staff of the Oarsman, which comes out once a month.

See the write-off winners at http://www.jea.org/workshops/spring09/writeoffs.html