Polk County Public Schools
Students from Davenport’s Ridge Community High won awards at the Florida Scholastic Press Association’s district competition held at the University of South Florida – St. Petersburg. More than 20 schools from Hernando, Hillsborough, Polk, Pasco and Sumter counties competed at the district competition with their work on newspapers, television and yearbooks.
Award winners from Ridge Community High are listed according to place won with competition category in parentheses. Teacher Stacey Creecy is their advisor.
First place: team of John Adams, Christian Holton, Dev Ramkissoon and Rafael Tirado (commercial), Alex Avalos (short story), team of Raymond De Jesus, Nick Garcia, Joey Shiver (Web site), Karina Veracierto (marketing campaign).
Second place: Raymond DeJesus (editorial cartoon), Ami Johnson (photography), Sarah Mayhugh (anchor script writing)
Third place: school publication Voltage (sports spread); Cassidy Williams (feature writing).
Honorable Mention: Kenn Pascascio (photography), Nestor Rossi (photography).
A team of students from Lakeland’s Lawton Chiles Middle won first place in a 2008 eCYBERMISSION technology competition sponsored by the U.S. Army. eCYBERMISSION is a Web-based competition in math, science and technology for sixth through ninth graders. Students propose a solution to a community problem and Lawton Chiles Middle students won first place in the southeast region. They worked with the Florida Department of Environmental Protection on the subject of invasive cogangrass on reclaimed, mined phosphate land. Invasive cogangrass does not allow native plants or animals to return to their mined land.
Team members were Nathan Even, Megan Holbrook and Kelsey Noris. Their advisor was teacher Debbie Viertel. As first place winners, each team member received a $2,000 savings bond.
Criteria for the award included involvement of community members, evidence of teamwork and contributions from all team members and quality of presentation.
