While American athletes start Friday, Feb. 6, in their pursuit of gold at the Winter Olympics in Italy, the Sunny Hills journalism and yearbook programs are also hoping for similar results.

Except they won’t know until Friday, March 20, whether they will earn Gold or Silver Crown plaques for their work from the 2024-2025 school year. 

That’s when the Columbia Scholastic Press Association [CSPA] will hold its annual awards ceremony at the Columbia University campus in New York to recognize the hundreds of high school journalism and yearbook staff named last December as Crown finalists.

“The Crown Awards honor top student publications chosen from CSPA members,” according to a news release announcing the finalists. “Crowns are selected for overall excellence in a head-to-head comparison by category. … During Crown adjudication, publications are judged for excellence demonstrated through design, photography, concept, coverage and writing. A total of 526 publications were eligible for judging in the 2026 competition.” 

While The Accolade has earned six Crown nominations in its 66 years of existence, this is only the second year the journalism program has been honored for its publication of news magazines, a transition that occurred in the 2024-2025 school year under then-adviser Tommy Li. Nevertheless, the Gold Crown plaque remains elusive for Li and the school’s student journalists.

“I really thought we had a good shot at the Gold last year when I took my wife and some of my children — including last year’s copy editor, Serenity — to the Big Apple for the awards ceremony,” Li said. “Before earning a Crown finalist nod, we earned a Pacemaker award from the National Scholastic Press Association [NSPA] in the fall semester, so I was hoping that the stars were all aligned.

“We still earned a historic level of other top awards in my last year here, so I’m proud of the students that contributed to that, and I was hopeful that the award-winning season would lead to an increased interest in the journalism program, especially since I would be retiring at the end of the school year.” 

Because of Li’s retirement, his successor, CJ D’Innocente, ended up submitting last year’s four magazines, two specialty magazines and the online news website to CSPA for judging last September, D’Innocente said.

The CSPA then named the journalism program among eight other Crown finalists in the “High School Hybrid General Magazine” category through various Tuesday, Dec. 9, posts on its Instagram page. Only two others from the list are from California — both publications from Palo Alto High School. “Hybrid” means a journalism program that produces print work along with online news website posts. 

“I was surprised to see that some of the programs we had competed against last year got moved to another category, so I’m hoping for the best this time around, especially since we have a smaller number of journalism programs we’re up against,” said Li, who is considering taking some of his family to the awards ceremony again. “Otherwise, I’m really happy to see that the 2024-2025 [The Accolade] staff is being recognized once again for all of its efforts to produce L.A. Times-quality work.”

YEARBOOK BACK TO ITS AWARD-WINNING WAYS

Despite not earning any national honors from CSPA or NSPA for the 2023-2024 annual, Helios bounced back when the CSPA posted on its Instagram page on Thursday, Dec. 11, that the program’s “It starts with you”-themed volume was among 43 publications — three from California — honored as a Crown finalist.

Of the eight finalist nominations in its program history, Helios has won two Gold Crowns. 

Yearbook adviser Lindsay Safe said she wasn’t expecting the nomination for the 295-page annual, though she kept an eye on CSPA’s Instagram page as the virtual announcements were posted.

“It’s always exciting to be recognized for the work that we do because we work really hard to produce a book that the kids love, and that’s your No. 1 goal to produce a yearbook that does its job — [take] photographs of the year and record what happened [with] a beautiful design and good writing,” Safe said.

She said she hopes for the best.

“I mean, you always want Gold, of course, but I’m just happy either way,” said Safe, who has been overseeing the yearbook program for 19 years. “To make the list is a huge honor, no matter what.”

STAFF EXPECTATIONS

Many on the journalism and yearbook staffs agree with Safe’s sentiment regarding the awards outcome. 

Last year’s The Accolade editor-in-chief, Alexxa Berumen, said she was surprised by the nomination but was hoping that the publication would win more awards as recognition during her year as the editor-in-chief.

“I believe that our work was very worthy of being recognized and that we have a great chance at getting something good if it’s looked at as a whole,” said Berumen, a communications major in her first year at the University of California, Davis. “Our magazines and online news website content were extremely consistent, which I think will play to our benefit.”

Layout editor senior Kevin Lee, who was an assistant news editor last year and wrote for print and online, said he’s optimistic about The Accolade getting its first gold.

“Since we got our first online Pacemaker finalist last year, I believe it showed our constant improvement in that aspect for the hybrid category that we are in since two years ago under the previous editor-in-chief,” Lee said. “This is especially true after we got our second Pacemaker finalist this year.”

Current editor-in-chief and last year’s Design editor, senior Maddison Pech, just happened to have been with her adviser in Room 62 when CSPA posted on Instagram that the yearbook got a Crown nomination.

“It was the third period during Link Crew, and Ms. Safe just started screaming, and then I thought, ‘Oh my God, we did it,’” said Pech, who got excused from her third period class to finish her yearbook deadline that December Thursday before final exam week. “I felt like I was gonna cry because I put a lot of work into that book.” 

While the senior said she hopes for a Gold Crown, she said the colorful cover she designed was a change from the previous yearbook.

“We had a white and black book the year before, so it wasn’t colorful, and it also didn’t have many design elements,” she said. “So I wanted to change that last year, and I decided to go with a gradient.”

Even though D’Innocente wasn’t part of the award-nominated staff, he said he still plans to do something special with this year’s group if the CSPA ends up awarding the program’s first Gold Crown plaque.

“If we win Gold, pizza party on me,” he said.