Commentary Winner

Stephen E. Sachs is a junior at Clayton High School, Clayton, Mo. He has been on the staff of the CHS Globe three years and has been opinion editor and national editor. In 1996 he won the personal column division of the National Federation of Press Women Youth Communication Contest. Stephen also has won writing awards for fiction and history. He is a member of the Clayton Speech and debate team, participates in the National History day competition, and serves on the editorial staff of The Works, Clayton's literary magazine.
Stephen's winning entries:
Children need good parents, not surveillance
"Freedom" has meaning in more than one language

Feature Writing Winner

Brett Hooton is a sophomore at Grandview High School, Grandview, Mo. Brett is features editor for The Student, Grandview's magazine. As a freshman he was honored by the Missouri Interscholastic Press Association for a music review. This spring he won a Quill and Scroll award for writing. Brett "loves journalism because it gives me the opportunity to write stories about extraordinary people who live supposedly ordinary lives." Eventually he plans to "write poetry and books and live somewhere on the beach."

Brett's winning entries:
The Boy in The Corner: All Richard Singleton wants is to be accepted
A Closer Look: Ending the Many Myths about Tourettes
Arrange the pieces that come your way

News Writing Winner

Stephanie Bleyer is a junior, Beachwood High School, Beachwood, Ohio. Stephanie's interest are varied: investigative reporting, dance, community service and vegetarianism. Her disclosures about her city's recycling program in the newspaper, The Beachcomber, caused embarrassed officials to begin effective recycling. In school she serves in student government. After school she trains and performs with a jazz dance company. She also volunteers to help the homeless and domestic violence victims, and she works as an assistant at a nutrition cooking school.
Bleyer's winning entries:
Recycling: City's waste program trashed
Beachwood's recycling system in need of tune-up Students bash trash system
City cleans up act with blue-bag recycling program
BHS debates wage increase

Sports Writing Winner

Lou Kohl is a senior at Albert Lea High School in Albert Lea, Minn. As a junior, Lou joined the Ahlahasa and by year's end was lead sportswriter. This year he's taken over as opinion editor. "I am more of a math and science guy, but journalism is fun because it give me a chance to express myself through writing," Kohl said. After school he serves as captain of his school's soccer and track teams and as a lawyer in the Mock Trial program.



Kohl's winning entries:
Day in the life of high school referee
No dumb jocks: ALHS athletes earn an A+

1997 Hemingway Award Finalists

Commentary

• Brad Butler, Bellaire High School, Bellaire, Texas
• Matt Johnson, Albert Lea High, Albert Lea, Minn.
• Lori O'Toole, Maize High School, Maize, Kan.
• Daniel Gaspar, Roslyn High School, Roslyn, N.Y.

• Lindsay Spolan, West Bloomfield High School, West Bloomfield, Mich.
• Megan Manfull, Washington High School, Washington, Iowa
• Keegan Checkett, Thomas Jefferson Independent Day School, Joplin, Mo.
• Heather Scheftel, Maine West High School, Des Plaines, Ill.

• Richard Just, Princeton High School, Princeton, N.J.
• Andrea Rotondi, John Carroll High School, Birmingham, Ala.
• Stephen Sachs, Clayton High School, Clayton, Mo.

• Jeffrey Lash, Minnechaug Regional High School, Wilbraham, Mass.
• Adam Grayson, New Rochelle High School, New Rochelle, N.Y.
• Seth Hartig, Lakota High School, West Chester, Ohio
• Megan Manfull, Washington High School, Washington, Iowa

The 1996 Hemingway Jury

• Arthur S. Brisbane, editor and vice president of The Kansas City Star, former columnist and author of Arthur Brisbane's Kansas City.
  
• Linda Ellerbee, founder of Lucky Duck Productions, which produces news programs for young people that have appeared on networks like Nickelodeon and MTV. A former network news correspondent, televison anchor and author of And So It Goes and Moving On.
  
• Dean Mills, dean of the School of Journalism at the Unviersity of Missouri, Columbia, and a juror on the international reporting panel of the Pulitzer Prizes.
  
• Tenanarive Due, is a features writer at the Miami Herald who produces a biweekly column on dating. She is also a horror novelist ("The Between") whose second book will be released this summer. Due is currently on leave working on her third book, a history of the civil rights movement, which she is writing with her mother.
  
• E.R. Shipp, as an editorial writer at the New York Daily News, won the 1995 Pulitzer Prize for editorials. She also is an assistant professor at Columbia University Graduate School of Journalsim, a contributor to Essence and co-author of Outrage: The Story Behind the Tawana Brawley Hoax.
  Bob is president of the Associated Press Managing Editors and a member of the National Association of Minority Media Executives.
  
• Joseph T. McGuff, former editor of The Kansas City Star. Joe hasbeen inducted into the Missouri Press Association Hall of Fame and the Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, N.Y. He is a director of the Kansas City Royals baseball team.

Other Program Information

Special Guests

Patrick and Carol Hemingway, Bozeman, Montana.

The Program

Welcoming Remarks

Art Brisbane
Editor of The Kansas City Star

Mark Zieman, Managing Editor/News

Leonard Pitts Jr.
columnist
The Miami Herald

Rhonda Chriss Lokeman, Op-Ed editor and columnist

Jane Amari, Managing editor/New Media, Features, Production

Mike McGraw, reporting coach and investigative reporter

Bill Norton, TeenStar coordinator

Patrick Hemingway

Kansas City Star Participants

Semi-Finalist Judges:

• Jane Amari, Managing editor/New Media, Features and Production
• Rhonda Chriss Lokeman, Op-Ed editor and columnist
• Mike McGraw, Reporting Coach and investigative reporter
• Jason Whitlock, Sports Columnist

Awards Coordinators

• Mark Zieman, Managing Editor/News
• Lisa Lopez, Administrative Assistant
• Bill Norton, TeenStar coordinator

Awards Sponsor

• Robert C. Woodworth, publisher