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Photograph by Sebastian Widmann
Proud 'El Gato' staff includes (from left) Ted Chauncy, Sara Clark, Margo Buchanan, staff advisor Jeff Mount, Jessica Jardine and Jenny Glennon.
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LGHS journalists sweep the Sober Graduation awards
By Leigh Ann Maze
For the first time in the Santa Clara County Sober Graduation journalism contest's 13-year history, one school took all of the prizes--Los Gatos High School.
The El Gato student newspaper won the $1,000 grant for best overall coverage and all four $250 prizes for best single story, photograph, layout and graphics and drawings.
The El Gato staff members swept the awards with an eight-page special insert dedicated to drunk driving in their April 28 issue. The powerful insert was the result of the El Gato staff spending three full days immersed in drunk-driving education programs.
On April 3, senior El Gato staff members Ted Chang, Margo Buchanan, Jenny Glennon and Sara Clark spent the day in the Sober Graduation Program, which educates student journalists about the realities of drunk driving. "A student journalist can often make a point to their peers better than adults can," said Jan Ford, public information director with the Avoid the 13 and Sober Graduation Foundation. "which is why we made it into a journalism contest. And these kids are good."
The day began with El Gato's senior news editor, Ted Chang, being "arrested" for drunken driving in front of LGHS by Los Gatos-Monte Sereno police officer Sam Wonnell. Chang was given a battery of sobriety tests before being handcuffed and taken to jail in the back of the patrol car. There, Chang had the choice of a hypothetical blood test or breathalyzer test. He was then placed in "the drunk tank".
"It was the most shameful moment of my life, even though it was fake," Chang said. Chang wrote a first person account of his experience.
The four student journalists then took a tour of the main jail. El Gato editor in chief Sara Clark wrote a first person account of her conversation with a maximum security inmate there, who was about her age.
After the tour, the student journalists heard a presentation by Maureen Little, a close friend of the Peckler family of Los Gatos. Three members of the Peckler family were killed by a drunk driver who is now serving a prison sentence for murder. El Gato center editor Margo Buchanan's article on Little's emotional speech won for best single story. "It was the most emotional part of the day and I think it communicated most strongly what the day was all about," Buchanan said.
The final event of the day was a visit to the Santa Clara County Morgue. The journalists could view shrouded corpses in the morgue's refrigeration room. Humor editor Jenny Glennon wrote a not-so-humorous article on what happens to a body once it arrives at the morgue.
The four articles covering Sober Graduation were made all the more poignant juxtaposed with coverage of the two-day Every 15 Minutes drunk driving program. The El Gato staff witnessed that program during the two days following Sober Graduation.
During Every 15 Minutes, which three El Gato reporters covered, there was a mock car accident in which a drunken driver killed two LGHS students and a mock funeral.
After reporting on three somber and emotional days of drunk driving education, the El Gato staff worked all weekend to put out the special "Under the Influence" issue, according to Buchanan. "It was the issue we worked the hardest on all year," Buchanan said. "But it wasn't work, it was what we all wanted to be doing, 100 percent."
Their hard work paid off with an unprecedented sweep of the Sober Graduation journalism awards. "What a graduation present for these kids," said journalism advisor Jeff Mount. "They really do industry-level journalism here."
With part of their prize money, all of which goes to the student newspaper, the staff published the last issue in color.
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Los Gatos, California Since 1881
