by Jerry Roberts

For the fourth time in a decade, La Vista, Mira Costa High School’s student-run newspaper, received the highest rating possible from the Columbia Scholastic Press Association as one of the best student newspapers in the nation.

The paper received a Gold-Medal rating by accumulating 949 points out of a possible 1,000, earning high marks across the board in coverage, writing and editing, graphic presentation and business operations.

"La Vista is a very fine paper," wrote one of the 250 anonymous judges that Columbia University in New York selects to annually judge school papers, "It is lively, provocative and well written. Clearly, the students are not afraid and demonstrate common sense and intelligence. You know what you do well…Heckuva paper — good for you."

The judge’s criticisms were to have more "stability/coherence" to the editorial pages and not cheerlead, and be more objective and complete in sports coverage. The Gold Medal was for the 2000-2001 year, when the editors were Al Brown, Devin Kingdon and Dana Taylor. Brown is attending Princeton University where he’s writing a column in The Princetonian on a Californian’s take on the Ivy League School. Taylor is attending the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia and Kingdon is going to Cal Poly, San Luis Obispo.

"We’re really a good paper, especially compared to other school newspapers," said Suzie Hanrahan, co-editor of this year’s paper with Karoline Katus. "One thing that most of the other student newspapers don’t have that we have is money. And we’re lucky here in that the administration gives us a free hand. I’ve heard from other student newspapers that the administration reviews their content before publishing. Here, the administration is supportive, but they don’t censor us. If we’re stretching the limit on something, we discuss whether it’s appropriate."

For instance, the Feb. 16, 2001, edition of the paper carried a four-page special section entitled "Let’s Talk About Sex." It was illustrated by an actual-size photo of condoms, three of which were foil-wrapped and one of which was unrolled onto a banana. The section concentrated on teen sex issues, including contraception, pre-marital sex, sexually transmitted diseases, statutory rape, dating issues and applicable statistics.

"We had a lot of discussion on that and the kids wanted the banana," said Jeanne Henry, a former Business Week writer who teaches journalism and English at Mira Costa and is the staff advisor for the paper. "We have to abide by the California Educational Code, which only prohibits three things." Those are pornography, anything libelous and anything that would encourage disobedience or overt disruptions in the school or community.

La Vista also won Gold Medals from Columbia in 1994-95, 1996-97 and 1998-99. It won a Silver Medal in 1997-98. Henry, who’s a graduate of the Columbia School of Journalism, has been the paper’s advisor for 11 years.

The paper gets put to bed every three weeks in Room 6 of the school, which, like most newsrooms, constantly appears as if a cyclone came through an hour earlier. The Wednesday deadline evenings prior to the Thursday paper distributions turn into jam sessions. The staff feeds off the camaraderie. The paper "dominates my world," said Sam Graham, who draws cartoons, takes photos and writes articles for the paper. "I’m always thinking of ideas for stories or cartoons," he said, "and sometimes you just forget about the homework."

But the appearance belies the fact that the paper has state-of-the-art computer equipment, including tabloid pagination software to lay out the paper onscreen instead of cutting and pasting copy. "The editors last year — Al, Devin and Dana — made the operation more efficient," Hanrahan said. "It looks a lot more professional and saves a lot of time."

Speaking of professional, La Vista covers the big and small issues that impact its students on local, state and national levels. Among its headlines in the Nov. 30, 2001, issue were "UC changes admissions policy for fall," "Mixed results from Healthy Kids survey," "School remembers Ryan King" — about a Mira Costa soccer player who died on the field — and "Streakers bare all to become legends," a piece by Graham on some under-clad students who decided to display their socially inappropriate shortcomings all year long at football games.

The paper doesn’t hesitate to challenge the status quo. Staff writer Tommy Allen, in the same issue, wrote an opinion piece entitled "The secret agenda of compulsory schooling" and Roman Ivey wrote another one that was headlined "Old prejudices not dead, just hiding," about de facto segregation being alive on the Mira Costa campus.

It costs La Vista about $600 to print 3,000 copies of a 12-page issue. The paper is in better shape than many student newspapers because of the donations it receives from the Parent Teacher Association and the Manhattan Beach Education Foundation. "A lot of wonderful little extras are paid for by the foundation," Henry said. The paper earned $3,575 or half of its yearly $7,000 budget from its 143 parental subscriptions, which cost $25 a year.

The paper is kept in technical shape through the efforts of students like Michael Nagy. "As you can see," he said, "filth sort of accumulates in this place. It was tough getting the balls on our computer mice to work, so I saw a deal at Fry’s to pick some replacements up for $10." ER