Quill and Scroll selected the West Side Story staff as the winner of the Blue and Gold Award for Staff Excellence Award, which is the highest achievement a staff can receive in the International Quill and Scroll Writing, Photo and Multimedia Contest. 

Quill and Scroll is a journalism society that recognizes high school reporting, photography, design and multimedia. On March 12, Quill and Scroll announced winners for spring 2020, and the schools with the most individual winners are deemed Blue and Gold Award winners. The WSS won both the overall Staff Excellence Award for the most awards in all categories and the Blue and Gold Comprehensive Writing Award for the most writing winners. Three students also were Sweepstakes winners, meaning they won first place internationally in their categories.

Sweepstakes winners:

• Paras Bassuk ’21 in Photo Illustration for “Unsustainable”
• Hanah Kitamoto ’22 in Sports Writing for “Wrestling with stereotypes”
• Amy Liao ’21 in Sports Page Design for “No off season”

Second place winner:

• Jenna Wang ’20 in Editorial Writing for “Social media spies”

Third place winners:

• Alex Carlon ’21 and Joe Goodman ’20 in In-depth Team Reporting for “Fighting for change: examining the combative culture at West High”

Honorable mention winners:

• Bess Frerichs ’21 in Profile Writing for “Emmie Boylan: living with spina bifida”
• Goodman in Sports Writing for “Mind over matter”
• Goodman in Opinion Writing for “Boxed out: the exploitation of college athletes”
• Alyssa Skala ’21 in Sports Action Photo for “Even Brauns ’20 slams home a dunk against Dubuque Hempstead on Jan. 7”