Pierce, Valley Colleges Get Journalism Awards

Student journalists from Pierce and Valley colleges dominated this year’s Journalism Assn. of Community Colleges state awards competition, Los Angeles Community College District officials said Wednesday.

Pierce College students won 27 awards, including first place in five categories. Los Angeles Valley College students won 23 awards, along with top general excellence honors for two campus publications, officials said.

Pierce student Beth Uyehara won four first-place awards, in editorial writing, investigative writing, light humor and on-the-spot copy editing. Joe Lumaya of Valencia won first place in sports news photography.

Individual first-place awards were won by Valley College students in three categories. Denise Morgan of Burbank received top honors in the photo story division, Terry Olwell of Sunland won for light humor and Shannon Chamness of Sylmar was honored in the magazine photo essay division.

The Valley Star weekly newspaper and Crown, a student-produced magazine, won top general excellence awards for Valley College, officials said.

This is the 13th consecutive year that Pierce College has won the most awards of any school in the competition, district officials said. This year’s contest was held in Fresno and drew student journalists from throughout California and Arizona.