Lauren Stewart and Grace Burke
Reporter & Associate Editor
On May 11, seven seniors earned first place in the Seventh Annual Access Awareness Awards for Grades K-12. In addition, NCHS students recieved second place in the News and Public Service Announcement (PSA) categories.
Seniors Chris Freeman, Nick Howard, Nicola Scandifio, Portia Schultz, Ryyan Taylor, Stewart Taylor and Nick Zanca, assisted by music tech teacher Anna Mase, were awarded first place in the School/Community Story category and the John M. Recipient Award for their video, “Scholarship Sunday”. The latter award, along with $1,000 worth of equipment, was presented to the highest-scoring project at each educational level – one to an elementary school, one to a middle school and one to a high school.
Stewart, who composed the lyrics, believes that the video was well-received and helped promote student participation for the annual Scholarship Drive held at NCHS. “I think the video impacted the school in so many ways, particularly because it got people excited about the scholarship drive and broke our school’s previous record for the amount of donations we received,” he said.
NCHS also took second place in the News category for the Morning Announcements, filmed by TV Broadcasting teacher Roman Cebulski’s advanced TV class every Friday morning. According to Mr. Cebulski, their news shows differs from those from other schools. “Our school is the only one where our news show is broadcasted live,” he said.
Senior Elizabeth Checketts, one of the show’s co-anchors, was excited about the win and thinks next year they will be able to get first place. “Last year we won third so we definitely improved, but next year I know we will continue to do even better because the underclassmen have a lot of potential,” she said.
In addition to these two honors, sophomore Olivia Hompe and freshmen Lainie Noonan and Kelsey Rowley won second place in the PSA category for their video, “Foul Ball”. The video, an in-class assignment given in TV Broadcasting I classes, was reviewed and selected by Mr. Cebulski, as well as one other PSA, to be submitted for the award. Olivia said she felt fortunate to be given this opportunity to submit her project. “I was really excited,” Oliva said. “Mr. Cebulski had told us what an honor it was to win and we were just happy to even be considered for the competition.”
Mr. Cebulski, representing NCHS, along with other judges from across Fairfield County met at Darien High School on May 9 to select the winners from over 290 student videos that were submitted. Mr.Cebulski thought highly of the winning work from his students. “I am more than happy for all the students that worked so hard throughout the year to get the recognition they deserve,” he said. “For many students, the pressure of sports and school added on to an elective project made it difficult to find balance. It’s nice that with all the sports that so many students participate in that they are able to receive an accolade for an elective that they are passionate about,” he said.
Video by ThinkInspirationM
