The Gold Crown Award from Columbia University is a national honor given for the top hybrid publications (online and print) in the nation, and The Gavel was the only school in San Antonio to receive the award this year (other schools in town won in the print only and online only categories). One of only three schools in the state of Texas receive the honor for a hybrid publication, it is given for overall excellence in coverage, writing, and design in publications that are produced in print and online.
In 2016 & 2017, The Gavel hybrid publications were awarded silver crowns, marking four silver crowns in the school’s 50-plus year history, and this year The Gavel received their first Gold Crown ever. Holmes High School print and online hybrid news staff was named one of eighteen prestigious Gold Crown award winners nationally from the Columbia Scholastic Press Association. Clark High School received a Gold Crown for their print-only publication, and both Stevens High School and Churchill High received Silver Crowns for their print-only publications.
CSPA is an international student press association, whose goal is to unite student journalists and faculty advisers at schools and colleges through educational conferences, idea exchanges, textbooks, critiques, and award programs. In addition to the Gold Crown award, last year’s publications were also ranked as a Gold Medalist by CSPA based on their critique, and last year’s staff took home home a litany of individual awards at the state level from the Interscholastic League Press Conference, including first place awards for opinion writing portfolio, news page/spread design, portrait, headlines, In-depth news/feature package, comic strip, and multimedia package.
Although the campus is a Title I school, Gavel staff members believe the Gavel is a space where students can communicate through writing on a level playing field in spite of economic challenges.
“Winning the Gold Crown is a surreal experience. It’s especially important because Holmes is one of the few Title I schools, and despite the adversity that faces economically disadvantaged students and campuses, we still produce quality work,” last year’s Executive Editor Alondra Martinez said.
Staff members worked to create each element with pride in order to produce an overall product that was award-worthy.
“There are so many elements that go into creating a good newspaper and I think we hit the mark on that. I think it helped too that we had so many student staff members who cared about what went into the paper and they always wanted to give it their all,” Martinez said.
A Gold Crown was achieved by having a different, creative perspective, and improvement from issue to issue.
“Every year we wanted to improve the newspaper and do things that hadn’t really been done before, so it’s amazing to see all the hard work be recognized with a Gold Crown. It makes me extremely proud to know that the newspaper staff will continue to improve from here,” last year’s Print Co-Editor Keren Cumpian said.
Taking on difficult topics and working to handle them respectfully was a goal of the staff to ensure that their readers were satisfied and informed, even with sensitive topics.
“As a staff, it was important for us to be respectful and ethical with every issue and each person we interviewed. We weren’t writing to get recognized, we wrote because the students deserved to know the truth,” Cumpian said.
All the hard work payed off with the satisfaction of receiving a Gold Crown Award, but the staff insists that what was really important was for their publications to impact students throughout campus.
“Being recognized as a Gold Crown winner validates all of the work we put into our newspaper. First and foremost, we produce The Gavel for our campus, so the way our peers and faculty receive it is very important to us. Knowing that its impact goes beyond our campus is just an incredible feeling that will encourage us to work harder,” a staff member last year and current Gavel Co-Editor Samantha Ruvalcaba said.
It continues to be important to the staff to give out quality information that is truthful, especially since its such a big platform that can affect many people on campus and in the community.
“As journalists, we’re given the role of delivering information to the public. This platform is so impactful, that if used in a careless way, the consequences can be detrimental to our society. Recognizing the impact of inaccurate journalism makes me want to both produce and receive quality journalism. The positive impact quality journalism can have, the changes that can be brought about, makes it even more worth doing,” Ruvalcaba said.
The staff hopes to build upon this honor and maintain high standards for the quality of journalism they produce.
“We as a staff are creating content that has significance and is being recognized as such,” a staff member last year and current Gavel Co-Editor Dezaray Villarreal said. “As staff members, we have the opportunity to share very important stories in and around our campus. Creating quality journalism is important because we are able to shine a light on the truth, as well as on varying people’s lives and stories,”