Renton High School Newsmagazine, Journalism Students Rack Up Awards

Renton Patch seeks suggestions from readers for individual kids, youth groups, teens, and even sports teams who wow us with their accomplishments.

This week, we applaud five students from who recently won National Scholastic Press Association (NSPA) and Washington Journalism Education Association (WJEA) awards for their work with ARROW, the student newspaper. The NSPA award is a “finalist” award for student journalism. Arrow magazine, is a finalist for the Pacemaker Literary Magazine Finalist Award  at NSPA in Anaheim, CA.

ARROW Editor-in-chief, Olivia Fry, commented about each of the award-winning submissions:

Name and age-- Alyssa Antonio, 17

Accomplishment: Honorable Mention – News Writing (WJEA)

"Alyssa is really determined in what she does so I knew that she was going to win something," Fry said. She said Antonio's topic was a difficult and sad one—teenagers and young adults addicted to prescription drugs. And she had to do on-the-spot writing.

Neighborhood: Renton Highlands
Interests: Music and Art

Name and age: Katie Reynolds, 16

Accomplishment: Excellent – Editorial Cartooning (WJEA)

She is an amazing artist, Fry said. "When we chose her for editorial cartooning I was so excited because I know how great she is at taking a theme or topic and changing it into the most beautiful piece of artwork,"

Neighborhood: Renton Highlands
Interests: Orchestra, reading, drama and all arts

Name and age Mark Mariano, 18

Accomplishment: Honorable Mention – Newsmagazine Layout (WJEA)

Of Mariano, Fry said: "Mark Mariano is absolutely magnificent with newspaper layouts. His was also an on the spot contest but he had printed a copy for us to look at and I was so amazed that he could come up with something that great that quickly."

Neighborhood: Skyway

Interests: Eating food, playing basketball, wrestling, and playing video games.

Name and age: Joe Vo, 18

Accomplishment: Excellent – News/Feature Photography (WJEA)

Of the photographs in the competition, Fry said, "One of my favorites that Joe had done was a picture of a guy named Gabriel who is also on staff. Gabriel stands really really still in the middle of all of us running around him and Joe captured him perfectly still in the middle and it was the most amazing picture to me,"

Neighborhood: Earlington Ridge
Interests: B-boying, Choreo, Airsofting and all things Hip-Hop

Name and age: Kenneth Orejudos, 17

Accomplishment: Excellent – Sports Photography (WJEA)

Fry is a big fan of Orejudos. "Kenneth, he takes the BEST sports photos. I have honestly not seen pictures like his that are better. He gets basketball players like a foot off the ground dunking into the hoop perfectly with no blurriness and also he gets pictures of weight lifters with the sweat dripping off their face. He's really good with detail."

Neighborhood: Benson Hill

Interests: Cereal, paper, and girls

The Renton High School 100 Ways of Looking at Renton special edition of ARROW is on stands now.

The issue includes Artifacts from 2011: The official ARROW time capsule, and small vignettes by the students entitled “Say this about me: How we want to be remembered” which are the student’s version of their obituary. Copies of the paper are available at the Renton History Museum.