Competing in the annual On-the-Spot Write-Offs hosted by the Southern California Journalism Education Association, members of Diamond Bar High School’s student newspaper, The Bull’s Eye, were awarded certificates and a medal for placing in the top spots of the various writing divisions.

The competition, held at California State University, Long Beach on April 13, was a congregation of various student journalism organizations from Southern California, including groups from Walnut High School, Wilson High School, and Bell Gardens High School. Students who competed in the Feature, News, Opinion, and Sports sections must have qualified at their local area Write-Offs. On the other hand, Photography, Newspaper layout, Yearbook layout, Critical review, and Editorial cartooning sections were open to all participants.

Despite not having as many representatives as other schools, The Bull’s Eye staff was still able to prove that it was indeed competition to be wary of—all five DBHS students who competed were able to earn an award. Senior Justin Park earned a medal for 2nd place in Newspaper Layout while staff members who obtained certificates were: senior Holly Liu for 13th Place in News, senior Winston Cho for 7th Place in Sports, junior Gloria Kim for 10th Place in Editorial cartooning, and junior Xing Yen Quek for 8th Place in Photography.

Scenarios were presented to writers of each section, some in the form of a press conference and others a presentation. Students were allowed time to ask any additional questions after the demonstration and given approximately one hour to write, with the exception of the Photo and Yearbook section participants, who were allowed two hours.

Articles and pictures were evaluated by judges specializing in each section, with the overall score created from the sum of the points given in individual categories and used to determine the winners.

“I was very proud of how well we performed at Write-Offs, considered we only had a handful of students compete. It will serve as an incentive for the staff to do even better next year, “Journalism advisor Doug List stated.