Seventeen names Silver Chips best high school paper

Silver Chips won Seventeen magazine's first annual high school newspaper contest, along with the National Scholastic Press Association (NSPA) Newspaper Pacemaker Award, an honor given to the top five large high school newspapers in the nation.

According to Seventeenmagazine representative Sara Shandler, Chips won because of its "excellent selection" of stories, its use of images, and its overall writing skills.

She also congratulated the paper and noted that the newspaper staff's time and effort was "abundantly clear."

For its 2001-2002 issues, Silver Chips was awarded the Pacemaker for newspapers of 17 or more pages. This was the first time since 1975 that Chips has won the award. Since its 1971 inception, the Pacemaker competition, co-sponsored by the NSPA and the Newspaper Association of America Foundation, has been considered the "Pulitzer Prize" of high school journalism.

Editor-in-chief Stephen Wertheim attended the Journalism Education Association/NSPA fall convention in Dallas, Texas, where Chips' November issue won second place in the Best of Show competition for newspapers with 21 or more pages.

Wertheim was pleased with the results. "We're ecstatic to receive such an honor," he said.

Chips print and online editions also earned 43 individual awards in the Maryland Scholastic Press Association (MSPA) Individual Writing and Editing Contest.

In the MSPA contest, the Silver Chips Online staff swept the categories of web feature writing, web news writing and web review and opinion, with staff members placing first, second and third in each.

Chips staff members who received first place awards from the MSPA were Art Editor Eric Shansby for Newspaper Comic, Editorial Cartoon and Illustration, Editor-in-Chief Jessica Stamler for Front Page Layout and Design Editor Colby Chapman for Features and Signed Editorial/Column.

The Black and White, Whitman High School's paper, also received a Pacemaker award.