Irvine High School newspaper recently won first place in sweepstakes, as well as First Place in Best of Show, Div. 1, at the Orange County Journalism
Education Association write-offs at Fullerton College. More than 250 student journalists and 15 local schools attended the annual event. Twenty-four El Vaquero student-staff members competed. Anthony Nquyen and Brian Zhou placed in news, David Hsiou and Brenda Nguyen placed in editorial, Michelle Ma placed in feature, and Arvind Katta and Kevin Lee placed in news. These seven staffers advanced to the Southern California Journalism Education Association state competition on Saturday, March 12 in Long Beach. Sixteen El Vaquero staffers, overall, represented Irvine High at the state level and brought home a Second Place win, missing out on First Place by only one point to Beverly Hills High School. Other Irvine High students who placed in county competition included Tyanna Adjie, Tiffany Chhuor, Joyce Hsiou, Patrick Nguyen, Claire Song, and Harrison Zhang in novice news; Anissa Govind and Hala Ozgur in editorial cartooning; Marwa Achikzai in critical review; Mona Chahine in news photography; and Teresa Kim and Saieashwar Mukund in news layout. Congratulations to El Vaquero staffers for a great showing at both the county and state competitions!