As part of the annual Southern California Journalism Education Association write-off competition, held at Rancho Dominguez High School in Long Beach earlier this month, the Bull’s Eye was selected as the top high school newspaper in Southern California.

Out of over 300 participating students, from 25 high school, who had qualified at the regionals competition, three Diamond Bar High School student journalists received first place medals, while DBHS placed third in Newspaper Sweepstakes and fifth in Yearbook Sweepstakes.

“It was great that so many students did well and that we won first place in the newspaper,” Bull’s Eye advisor Doug List said.

At the write-offs, students are given about an hour to write stories in different categories, such as news, novice news, editorial, feature and critical review. Other competitions take place for photography, newspaper and yearbook layout and editorial cartoon.

Students competing in news, novice news, editorial and editorial cartoon were presented with a scenario in which a club was denied a controversial guest speaker. Senior Brian Chang placed first and junior Catherine Liu placed 15th in news. Additionally, senior Megan Lee placed second in editorial cartoon and sophomore Elizabeth Peng earned a superior ranking in novice news.

“I’ve never done better than sixth place at state, so being able to get first in my senior year was a really amazing feeling,” Chang said.

In newspaper layout, where competitors designed newspaper pages on a computer, senior Hannah Lee placed first for her page design. For critical review, writers watched and critiqued a theater performance. Senior Pauline Woodley placed first and junior Amelie Lee placed fourth in critical review.

In the feature category, where writers wrote about a synchronized skater, junior Cindy Liu placed second.

For sports, senior Ryan Chae placed eighth for writing about a professional sports journalist. In the yearbook category, senior Jeremy Kim and junior Karen Zheng placed fourth in yearbook theme while seniors Tulasi Murthy and Megan Ly placed fifth in layout and copy.