Kalani Wins 9 at Hawai’i High School Journalism Awards

Hungry, cold, excited, and scared were a few of the emotions circulating around table 13 where six members of the Kaleo O Kalani sat representing our school at the 2018 Hawaii High School Journalism Awards on Wednesday at the Pagoda Hotel.

It has been three years since the resurrection of the school newspaper and this year the newswriting staff has worked harder than ever, coming back with nine awards.

There were 20 categories for each school Public and private schools were separately judged, then together in an overall division.

In the public school division, Noah Tamura (12) won first place in Photo Essay as well as third for Photo Action. Alana Nakafuji (9) placed third for Comic Strip. Skye Miyauchi (9) also placed third for Editorial Comic. As a team, Kaleo O Kalani won first for Social Media, second for Video, and third for Multimedia.

For the overall state awards within each category, Kalani placed second for both Photo and Website.

Mileka Lincoln, from Hawaii News Now, was the keynote speaker for the award ceremony. Lincoln gave an inspiring speech on the importance on journalism, branching out into other aspects of the profession, like social media, being “dressed up from the waist up”, and having a valid excuse to be nosey.

Hawaii Baptist Academy won best newspaper for the fourth year in a row. Sacred Hearts and Mililani took second and third respectively.

The event was sponsored by Hawaii Publishers Association, Honolulu Star-Advertiser, Midweek, Honolulu Civil Beat, Nella Media Group, Honolulu Publishing, and Clarity Printing.