Seaford High School Newspaper Named 'Most Outstanding'

For the second consecutive year, newspaper, The Viking Voice, scooped up the most prestigious honor of “Most Outstanding Newspaper” at the Quill Awards competition for excellence in high school journalism held at Adelphi University.

The newspaper competed against nearly 60 schools throughout Long Island for the coveted award, and also brought home two second-place honors including “Best Cover” and “Best Feature.” 

Written by senior Hannah Spinola, the winning feature, titled, “You Can Always Turn an Inkblot into A Butterfly," spotlighted a in which John Halligan shared his heartbreaking story of his son, Ryan, a victim of bullying who committed suicide at a young age. The title is a quote from one of Halligan’s teachers, which he uses to illustrate to students how to turn a bad behavior into something good.

“I was shocked when I won,” said Spinola, an aspiring teacher who hopes to continue writing for a newspaper in college. “I think the story tore at people’s hearts; it was very emotional.” 

The newspaper is written and designed by a 14-member “staff” that meets every day in a Publications class taught by art teacher Curtis Tripoli and English teacher Linda Schwartz. Staff members include Kelly Ackerman, Lauren Allen, Jessica Armour, Paris Bruemmer, Katherine Caputo, Lauren Clymer, Cassidy Cunningham, Kimberly Keating, Deidre Muirhead, Jessica Schnur, Brian Stieglitz, and three editors, Michelle Allaire, Krysta Parisi, Hannah Spinola. The editors are taking the class for the second time and are involved in managing the publication, as well as writing and designing their own articles and guiding the first-year students.

The Viking Voice has won four gold medals for best newspaper in recent years. Tripoli and Schwartz attribute the victories to the balance of writing and design instruction offered to students.

"We don't cover school ‘news’ in a traditional sense,” Schwartz said. “Our students brainstorm article ideas that are not only interesting to our readers, but are interesting to them. We wind up with a lot of feature and editorials about high school life."

This year, the students worked on some stand-out stories on student cheating, bullying and the impact of larger class sizes on learning.

“Students get the experience of working in a setting as close to an actual job as they will have in school,” Tripoli said. “We set deadlines and they are held accountable for those deadlines.” 

The newspaper students also develop other skills that are not always honed in a traditional class. 

“Everyone contributes to a common goal with each issue,” he said. “The students collaborate, debate, argue, support and ultimately build a certain respect for each other.”