At the convention the students, including seniors Sierra Fender, Melissa White, Katie Miller, Shannon Miller, Suzanne English, Andrew Murray, Sarah Littauer and Lara Bannister and juniors Graham Galloway, Haley Staton, Austin Woodard and Maggie King, attended a variety of newspaper and yearbook classes and competed in several events.

On Nov. 16 more than 2,000 high school students from across the nation competed for a superior, excellent or honorable mention rating in the national write-off competition. Superior awards were presented to White for yearbook cover/endsheets, Galloway for yearbook sports copy/captions and Fender for graphic design/photo illustration.

Excellent awards were presented to King for yearbook clubs copy/captions,  Katie Miller for review writing and Shannon Miller for news writing.

Honorable mention awards were presented to English for feature writing, Murray for sports writing, Staton for yearbook student life copy/captions and Littauer for yearbook student life photography.

In addition to the individual awards, the Westwind yearbook received a Best in Show Award in the 225-274 page yearbook category and the Wingspan Online received a Best in Show in the small school website publication category.

King, Katie Miller, Murray and Woodard made up the journalism quiz bowl team that earned the third seed and made it to the quarterfinals. The quiz bowl championship trophy went to Conestoga High School in Berwyn, Penn.

“Quiz bowl was a good experience, and as a team with two members new to quiz bowl I think we did well,” King said. “In the future we will study more and hopefully we’ll win next year.”

While in Boston the students visited Harvard University, took a Freedom Tour and visited the Boston Marathon bombing site.

“Boston was a great experience,” King said. “Not only did I learn a lot about journalism, but I got to travel to a place I had never been before.”

By Katie Miller

Kennedy and the 4 x 800 men’s relay team placed fifth at the meet, qualifying them for the state competition.

The indoor track team had a successful season and sent six team members to the state meet on Feb. 9. Seniors Kennedy, Heidi Brickhouse and William Bayless and juniors Melissa White, Joe Chapman and Michael Tang all had qualifying times to compete in the state competition.

Kennedy said the team performed well in the state meet and he was proud of everyone on the relay.

“The relay team really ran well in the state meet. We did as well as we expected,” Kennedy said. “Although I thought we should have placed fourth, I was impressed with how we ran.”

In addition to Kennedy, the 4 x 800 relay team was included Bayless, Tang and Chapman.

“When we went to the meet on
Saturday, I was nervous,” Tang said. “But our performance paid off and we raced really well.”

The track team is not judged as a team, but on individual races. Along with the relay team, Brickhouse qualified for the state competition in shot put and White in the 55 meter dash. Brickhouse took second place at the meet, landing her a spot on the Booster Club’s  Wall of Fame in the cafeteria.

Brickhouse said that making the Wall of Fame was an achievement that marked a positive end to a great four years on the West track team.

“I was elated that I had finally achieved a goal that I had set from the beginning of the season,” Brickhouse said. “I am excited to be up there with the ‘greats’ of the school.”

White qualified for the state competition on Dec. 12 at the first indoor meet of the season. She said that it was a pleasant surprise to qualify so early for state meet and that it gave her time to practice and prepare herself for the state competition.

“I was actually surprised to have qualified for state so early considering the past two years I have waited until the last two meets to do so,” White said. “Breaking my old personal record just made the experience even better. I could fine tune things instead of worrying about meeting the qualification time to get to the state meet.”

The men’s relay team placed fifth in the state and were off the fourth place mark by  .02 seconds.”

Coach Walt Fletcher said he was impressed with his team’s results.

“My goal was to send as many people to the state meet as possible,” Fletcher said. “I’ve been really glad with the performances I’ve seen, and my only hope is that we can add to the total we already have.”

By Andrew Murray, Asst. Opinion Editor