HIGH LIFE : Laguna Beach High Students Win AIDS Video Competition

Students from Laguna Beach High School recently won first place in a local AIDS video competition sponsored by KOCE-TV, Channel 50, and the Orange County Red Cross.

The purpose of the contest was to help teen-agers learn the facts about AIDS by producing information videos.

Serena Kizlty, a junior at Laguna Beach, was producer of the winning video, which addressed the issue of AIDS and teen-age pregnancy. Her assistant producers were sophomore Silva Sosa and junior Jason Gagnon; the project adviser was Jeffrey Hornacek.

Second place went to a team from Foothill High School, whose video attempted to make the public aware of what could happen to AIDS victims if something is not done immediately to help them. Senior Noah King was the producer. Assistant producer was senior Peter Mullen and project adviser was Stephane Zamorano.

Third place also went to Foothill High. Sophomore Jodie Baird was the producer, and her assistants were sophomores Marc Danon and Barbra Tibbles.

Laguna Beach will receive $200 in first-place prize money and Foothill will receive $200 for its second- and third-place finishes. The students will be awarded trophies, plaques and certificates. The winning 1-minute video will air on KOCE throughout the year.

In addition, Laguna Beach’s winning video will be entered in a national PBS AIDS video competition. Three winners from entries submitted by public television stations across the country will be selected in June, and the winning students will receive an all-expense-paid trip to the 1989 PBS annual program fair in Marco Island, Fla. Winning videos will be edited into a national PBS program, which will be broadcast later this year.

First-place Bank of America Achievement Awards of $2,000 each were presented to Sunny Hills High School student Ronald Strauss in the science and math category and Foothill High School student Joanna Brooks in liberal arts.

In 1988, U.S. teen-agers spent $31.3 billion of their money plus $47.7 billion of their parents’ money, for a total of $79 billion, according to the recent issue of NEA Today, the magazine of the National Education Assn.

Though the number of teen-agers has been declining since 1975, last year’s total teen bill was 5.3% more than 1987’s and 21.5% more than the 1985 total.

“Glory is fleeting, but obscurity is forever.”

--Napoleon Bonaparte (1769-1821)