This is an extension of the column published in the May senior issue. It may be updated from time to time with new information about the retired adviser and one more gallery of images upon the writer’s return in mid-July from his overseas trip.
I never fathomed that the 2024-2025 school year would lead to the historic success of the journalism program.
The culmination of our award-winning season occurred this past weekend, Sunday, June 22, in downtown Los Angeles during the 67th Southern California Journalism Awards sponsored by the Los Angeles Press Club.
During the dinner ceremony at The Biltmore Los Angeles hotel, our publications program had three print issues nominated as a finalist for the L.A. Press Club’s “Best High School Newspaper” category based on work produced in 2024.
• The Accolade March 2024 specialty magazine issue, “Reframing Safety”
• The Accolade October 2024 Spotlight specialty magazine issue, “Decision 2024 Great Expectations”
• Accolade’s December 2024 news magazine issue, “’tis the season”
We were competing against finalists from two other high school publications: The Mirror from Van Nuys High School, last year’s winner, and The Pearl Post from Daniel Pearl Magnet High School in Balboa Lake. Both of these schools are part of the Los Angeles Unified School District [LAUSD] so it was a battle between the OC and L.A.
Before the awards ceremony, we had earned this recognition three other times — the first one coming upon the completion of my first year returning as adviser during the 2016-2017 school year; the second one coming the year after; then a gap of nearly five years before we claimed this recognition again for one of our issues published in 2022.
Van Nuys High School’s The Mirror has deservedly dominated this competition over the past several years, especially during the 2024 awards ceremony when it swept “Best High School Newspaper” and “Best High School News Website.” Its website also placed third in a non-student media category, “Website, Traditional News Organization.”
In total, this LAUSD juggernaut has won the “Best High School Newspaper” trophy one other time in 2021; since the contest organizers added a separate “Best High School News Website” category for the 2020 awards ceremony, The Mirror’s website has taken the top prize two other times in 2023 and 2020.
The same can be said of The Pearl Post; it was named “Best High School Newspaper” four times in 2019, 2016, 2015 and 2012 — the first time the category was added with a winning high school publication.
So that explains why I wasn’t confident that we’d have a chance to receive the title as “Best High School Newspaper” again. I recall telling my daughter, a rising senior at Sunny Hills who was the copy editor in the 2024-2025 school year, who accompanied me to attend the awards ceremony to prepare ourselves for the likelihood we wouldn’t win anything and be sure to congratulate students representing the winning school publication.
Imagine my elation when more than a minute into the awards ceremony, the co-emcee announced the winner for “Best High School Newspaper” with the words, “Jaimie Chun, The Accolade.” (Unfortunately, he said the then-editor-in-chief’s name in a Latino pronunciation, totally not realizing that she’s Korean American.)
Then the projection screen featured the cover of the 2024 “Reframing Safety” issue followed by the other co-emcee reading out loud the judges’ comments for why our publication stood out above the rest: “Struck by the captivating writing and creative ways to think about safety from multiple perspectives including digital and climate safety.”
I was flabbergasted. These were the first words that came out of my mouth: “All right! Hey! Hurray!”
The next step was to go up and accept the trophy, which I encouraged my daughter to do. The moment with me and my daughter together in front of the awards reception area and her holding the trophy will be something I will treasure for the rest of my life.
Upon looking back at my video recording of that part of the awards ceremony, I was also surprised that second place for “Best High School Newspaper” went to our 16-page elections issue from last October.
That just goes to show how much specialty magazines have come along these past few years, and I can only hope the returning staff will also take this into consideration when it takes on the one Spotlight issue (instead of the two we did this past school year) in the coming school year.
Many last year had shared in their application to return to staff to do away with Spotlight after our first year of introducing it to our readers, and so I hope the results from the L.A. Press Club awards ceremony will vindicate my final wish for it to remain a part of the journalism program.
Although we were unable to repeat the feat that The Mirror accomplished last year in winning the top award for “Best High School News Website” — we came in second to the Van Nuys school’s fourth trophy in that category — and our other finalists for individual writing categories didn’t take the top prize, I still considered the evening a successful one.
Former managing editor Christine Yoo, who’ll be starting her first year at Harvard this fall, earned third-place honors for her two finalist stories published in 2024, and my daughter, Serenity Li, got second place for her 2024 feature profile of a campus personality.
Most likely, I will not be back at this event since I am no longer working for the Fullerton Joint Union High School District. Hopefully, my successor, CJ D’Innocente, will want to continue my tradition of submitting entries for this competition.
“CARPE DIEM, SEIZE THE DAY BOYS, MAKE YOUR LIVES EXTRAORDINARY”
Those are the words of Robin Williams’ character, new English teacher John Keating, from the 1989 film, “Dead Poets Society.”
I watched the more than two-hour movie the summer I graduated from USC as a print journalism and English major, and although I was just starting my internship as a reporter for The Sun newspaper in San Bernardino, Williams’ portrayal of an educator who made such an impact on his students inspired me to eventually pursue a change in profession in the mid-1990s.
My “seize the day” moment came when I read of a job opening in the spring of 2001 for a journalism teacher/adviser at Sunny Hills High School. At the time, I was finishing my first year with that same title at Orange High School, where I had first started working at in the fall of 1999 as an English and English Language Development instructor.
I asked my wife what she thought of my giving it a shot at applying for such a position given less than a year of experience as a journalism adviser/teacher, and she encouraged me to submit my application. I interviewed with one of the assistant principals and surprisingly got the job offer (at the time, Sunny Hills was in the middle of replacing its principal, which explained why I never interviewed with someone in that position).
When The Accolade published the story introducing me as a new teacher in 2001, the writer’s first sentence about me started with “Tommy Li has finally attained his dream job.”
In my 24th year here, this dream job ended on May 30 with my early retirement, which wasn’t my original plan.
I told many of my students my goal was to retire when my youngest son, a freshman here, graduates from this school. I was looking forward to joining him three years from now in moving on to the next phase of my life.
But during my conversations with my son at the beginning of the 2024-2025 school year, I made a promise to him that if our district were to ever offer a “golden handshake” while he’s attending Sunny Hills, I would take it so he can return to the school in our neighborhood in Irvine. Who could have ever imagined that district officials chose to present such an offer during its Nov. 12 school board meeting.
And so in the words of our current U.S. president, “promises made, promises kept.”
I submitted my early retirement confirmation in February as required, but I chose to keep my decision a secret with the exception of only a few peers and my family. My son in the fall will be able to return to the high school campus in the Irvine Unified School District.
Since The Accolade’s last issue of the school year has a tradition of allowing the seniors to write their farewell columns, I asked my top editors in April if they would grant space in this issue to do the same for me. I am grateful they agreed.
For those who have read this far, thank you. Here are my parting sentiments using more golden lines from “Dead Poets Society’s” teacher to introduce each one.
“LANGUAGE WAS DEVELOPED FOR ONE ENDEAVOR, AND THAT IS. … TO WOO WOMEN!”
I would like to acknowledge my better half — my wife. She has been forgiving of the times I’ve spent working late during our production nights.
She’s made a tremendous emotional and physical sacrifice in taking care of our five youngsters most of the time on her own. She’s had her moments of complaining about my not being around at home enough, and so I know nothing can make up for those lost moments. The one thing we can only do now is to look forward to what lies ahead.
Come Tuesday, July 1, we will celebrate our 25th wedding anniversary with a 12-night cruise around Japan with a stop in Busan, South Korea. I am looking forward to spending that time with her without any other distractions.
“NO MATTER WHAT ANYBODY TELLS YOU, WORDS AND IDEAS CAN CHANGE THE WORLD”
It truly is best to leave at the top of one’s game. As I mentioned earlier, Accolade has earned a historic number of awards this school year. This would not have been possible without the efforts of my journalism students — past and present.
I recall my first year as adviser during the 2001-2002 school year. Despite the challenges I faced adjusting to a new campus and new teaching preps, the spring semester culminated with my first experience in guiding a team that swept the local and Southern California sweepstakes journalism contests.
The next season of incredible success came four years later during the 2004-2005 school year; many of the staffers at this point were trained by me, and under then-editor-in-chief Samuel Chang, we once again swept Sweepstakes for Orange County and Southern California competitions. We also gained national recognition for the first time as a Pacemaker and Silver Crown winner, and we concluded the school year with the Best High School Newspaper award from The Los Angeles Times, which also awarded the journalism program $1,000.
My first stint as journalism teacher/adviser ended abruptly in the beginning of the 2008-2009 school year. My official reason for leaving was because of family reasons, and by that time period, my fourth child, Serenity Li, was born in June.
Upon reflection, the decision to take a break ended up being quite refreshing because it helped me to be better prepared and motivated when I was given the opportunity to guide the journalism program again at the start of the 2016-2017 school year.
Like with Keating, I emphasized with my students the importance of every word in each sentence of their writing and encouraged them to take on staff editorials for the purpose of changing their campus and their community and their world around them.
I am forever grateful to those Acco alum whom I have been able to get in touch with and who were willing to come speak to my students if not in person, then via Zoom. This past school year especially, I was able to connect with Acco alumni from decades ago, and if it weren’t for their willingness to support our program financially, we wouldn’t have been able to produce the print magazines we distributed this school year.
Thank you also to those who were able to attend our banquet this past May and for the gifts you shared. I appreciated your taking the time out to attend and show your support.
“… EACH AND EVERY ONE OF US IN THIS ROOM IS ONE DAY GOING TO STOP BREATHING, TURN COLD AND DIE”
I realize that winning trophies and plaques in the long run will not mean everything; it’s definitely a temporary high until the next school year comes along to see whether we can meet or surpass the previous staffs’ accomplishments. In the long run, I know in the next year or two, many students at Sunny Hills will no longer remember me or my contributions to the journalism program.
Life will go on for all of us, and what will any of my past students and children and relatives remember about me when the day comes for me to visit my Maker? I started thinking about this more than ever when I had the chance to attend the funeral service for former Accolade adviser Carol Hallenbeck, whom my predecessor from my first go-around as adviser had succeeded at the start of the 1993-1994 school year.
Those who shared their memories of her 24-year tenure at Sunny Hills mentioned more about the life lessons they learned as student journalists and how they were able to apply them to their college and career experiences. I don’t recall anyone talking about trophies or awards. It was quite touching to also learn that Hallenbeck found another passion beyond journalism after her retirement — being a Bowers Museum docent. That gives me the satisfaction of knowing that the journalism bug could be replaced with something else.
In the meantime, part of my retirement deal is I can’t work in this district for the next five years. If whoever’s in charge here in 2030 would like me to oversee our 75th year of publishing, that could be an enticing offer if I still have that verve for journalism. I’d need to check with my wife first, though.
