By Risa Askerooth

[email protected]

After releasing six issues worth of countless hours spent writing and designing, MHS’ Trojan Times attended the Hawaii High School Journalism Awards on April 23 at the Pagoda Hotel. Along with 16 other awards, the newspaper took home first for best in state in the print division and second for best in state in the online division against 19 other Hawaii schools.

“I didn’t really know how to expect for print so when they announced that we were best in state newspaper, I was so excited. I could not even contain it,” said Editor-in-Chief Senior April-Joy McCann. Managing Editor Reagan Paz added, “When they said that we were the best in the state, it was just kind of that feeling of accomplishment. You know that you did something right and you know that all the work you put into (the publication) finally paid off for that one moment.”

The four that attended the event were McCann, Paz, Online Editor Junior Lauren Barbour and Journalism adviser Christopher Sato. The judging was broken down into two rounds: the first concerned awards in the public and private school divisions, while the second announced the awards for state winners.

Even with seven private schools competing, Mililani held its own against publications from schools such as Kamehameha Schools Maui and Hawaii Baptist Academy.  “It felt very good to have the knowledge that we are on the level of private schools and I definitely want to uphold that standard,” remarked Barbour, who was also elected most valuable staff member.

This year marked the second year that MHS won best in state for print division, the first being in 2010.

Although the Hawaii High School Journalism Awards offered recognition, the real reward for the staff lies in the process of getting there, from training new staff members at the beginning of the year to finalizing the layout in the latter part of it. In order to create each issue, the staff has a layout week every month, in which they come in at 7:30 a.m. and do not leave until at least 4:30 p.m. “I think really in truth, if we won it or not, we knew we worked hard,” said Sato, “No one can take away all the hard work they’ve done. An award is just flourish.”

This year’s staff had 19 members on it, made up of eight rookies and 11 editors, which made it slightly more difficult to stay organized. “I think the biggest challenge (for) me as editor-in-chief was just managing a larger staff this year,” expressed McCann, “So with more people, you can have more means to do things but at the same time it was a little bit more difficult.”

Even with a larger staff, everyone was able to grow closer together and depend on each other. “Because we are a team and we know that we’re a team, we put out better work than we would for like just regular class because we actually want people to be proud of it or we want other people to like it and we want to do it for us, not just for a grade,” said Paz.

With this being the last issue of the Trojan Times for the year, the staff will continue to do their best even when things get difficult, knowing that dedication and passion are the best rewards.