The Martha’s Vineyard Regional High School’s newspaper, the High School View, received two prestigious awards from the New England Scholastic Press Association (NESPA) awards ceremony held last Friday at Boston University.
The student-run newspaper earned first place in the All–New England award category for print newspaper from schools with fewer than 750 students, highlighting the editorial work from senior editors-in-chief Natalie Wambui, Louisiana White, and Finn Robinson. Junior Brady Vought also won first place in the Special Achievement category for Environment Portrait Photography for his photograph accompanying the article “Wampanoag Students Resist Erasure.”
The awards mark a proud moment for the teachers who help the students put the paper together.
“I’m incredibly proud of these achievements, but even more proud of the way they learn from each other, work together, and continue to seek out stories that matter to them and to the school community as a whole,” said English teacher and advisor to the High School View, Kate Hennigan. “It means a lot to me to see them recognized for the effort and dedication they put into producing quality student journalism and keeping the High School View vibrant.”
“I think if you ask our students why they work on the school newspaper, you’ll find it’s not about the accolades — it really is rewarding to feel a story come together, to feel your work pay off, and to know you’re serving your community in this way,” Hennigan added.
Wambui, on the student side, said it took a team.
“There were definitely challenges—balancing school and deadlines, managing different ideas, and learning how to lead in a way that kept us all on the same page. But what made it worth it was seeing how much we grew, not just as writers or editors, but as a team,” she said. “One of the biggest lessons I learned was how important it is to listen, adapt, and trust the people around you. I’m proud of how we came together and really earned this as a group.”
The school paper, HSV for short, is a printed newspaper that is written, edited, photographed and produced entirely by student journalists, and published in The MV Times’ weekly newspaper. It is one of just a handful of high school publications in the U.S. that are circulated to the entire community within a weekly newspaper.
You can read the newspaper online at bit.ly/MVT_HighSchoolView.
