JEANC State Convention
The Octagon was awarded “Excellent” in the small newspaper category of the Best of the West contest at a recent convention.
Six staffers also received individual awards in onsite competitions: senior Ryan Ho (“Excellent” in Newswriting); senior Eric Hilton (“Superior” in Sportswriting); sophomore Zoe Bowlus (“Honorable Mention” in Sportswriting); senior Connor Martin (“Superior” in Review Writing); and junior Grant Miner (“Honorable Mention” in Review Writing). Freshman Elena Lipman won two prizes in a Twitter contest in which she tweeted what she’d learned about journalism at the convention.
The staff attended the Journalism Education Association of Northern California state convention at the Sacramento Convention Center, Oct. 11-12.
The 16 students and adviser Patricia Fels attended eight sessions and workshops, learning new ideas that could be used immediately to improve the paper. The staff also received an onsite critique of their Sept. 24 issue by Mark Plenke, the newspaper adviser at Chico State.
Photographers Cissy Shi and Lipman took pictures of a protest against the corporation Monsanto outside the Capitol building on a photo walk.
Championship Mock Trial Academy at UC Irvine
Seven Mock Trial students attended the Championship Mock Trial Academy at UC Irvine, Oct. 12-13.
The students— freshmen Shriya Nadgauda and John Hansen, sophomores Emma Belliveau and Emma Brown, and juniors George Cvetich, Claire Pinson and Aishwarya Nadgauda—were led by coach Jeanine Boyers. They stayed overnight at the Irvine Marriott.
The students attended a series of workshops organized by the UC Irvine Mock Trial team, which placed first in the national collegiate mock trial competion for two consecutive years. Students learned about direct and cross examination, witnessing, opening and closing arguments, and pretrial procedures. The Country Day Mock Trial team was put into the Mulan group (the students were divided into Disney movie groups) and chanted “Let’s get down to business, to defeat the Huns!” to show their group spirit.
There were competitions at the academy, but only one representative from each group participated. Cvetich was chosen to compete in the direct examination competition, but did not win.
