The Eagle Times, the Bonny Eagle High School newspaper, brought honor to MSAD #6 by winning several outstanding awards at the annual New England Scholastic Press Association (NESPA) conference at Boston University April 29. The paper, last year and this year, won first place and all-New England honors, in the large school category. That means that in the 25 or so papers from all over New England with more than 1,000 students that entered the contest, Bonny Eagle's paper was tied for number 1. Approximately 100 schools participate in the contest, and about 1,000 individual entries for stories or artwork were evaluated this year. The entries were judged primarily by Boston University School of Communication professors and students.
Advisor Mrs. Joyce Turrell was extremely proud of the award. "Good writing and story selection are the key to a professional-quality paper. The students have been working diligently, mostly after school and not for course credit, to create a paper with those qualities and have been rewarded for it," she said. Mrs. Turrell has been advisor for the last nine years of the paper, which has been published for 22 years. Helen F. Smith, executive director of NESPA commended the paper, which publishes five editions a year, for its "integrity" and good writing. The paper was tied for first with the high school paper, The Forum, from Lincoln-Sudbury Regional High School in Massachusetts.
In addition to the general award for the paper, several students won individual awards. Sophomore Shawn Smith won honors for his news story "Graduating Just Got Tougher, and senior Allie Perseille for her story,"Handicapped Accessible." Freshman Destiny Pittman won honors for her photograph of freshman Sam Blake-Marsh all painted up for spirit week. Senior Justin Norton won an award for his cartoon "Cracking Down". The paper won a Highest Achievement ranking for the first time.
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Congratulations also to current students who were editors during that time including junior Corey Templeton, senior Allie Perseille, sophomore Shawn Smith, junior Ed Snell, sophomore Ryan Finch, sophomore Whitney King, senior Sean Curtis, and sophomore Jared Gowen, who all worked so hard to win this achievement.
Press and Photo Release May 2004
Photo by Kathy Campbell