On Saturday, April 16th, the National Pacemaker Award Winners were announced in Anaheim, California. The Hoofprint‘s website, hoofprint.net, won the award for the first time ever. The National Pacemaker Award “an award for excellence in American student journalism, given annually since 1927. The awards are generally considered to be the highest national honors in their field, and are unofficially known as the “Pulitzer Prizes of student journalism.”
“It is nice to be recognized for all the work that we do online. Most work, in publication classes, is unappreciated for the time put into it. I think it is really cool that we are the site that is an example for other schools to look at,” said Senior Stephanie Bunting.
One unique thing about the hoofprint is that there are no editors of the site to tell students what to write about. The class of Journalism students choose what newsworthy stories to write. Each week, each student has an assignmen
t to create a great story about something going on around the school or even around the world. Having a variety of stories that students want to write about is what makes the site so successful.
“I like the fact that we get to choose what stories we want to do. It makes the website more true to the school. This makes me more accomplish and motivated to write good stories because, I know the whole school will be reading it,” Senior Lauren Wilson said.
No other Buffalo High School publications have been awarded a Pacemaker.
