Deny Mita, Year 5, Holy Cross School
IT was a very exciting night on November 28 because the students at Holy Cross attended the Reporters and Photographers celebration.
It was held in the evening and it felt strange being at school at night.
Our school principal Sarah Hamilton welcomed everyone and Marg Judd, the Year 5 teacher who coordinates the club, spoke about the achievements of the club members in 2017.
In the club this year there are 25-30 reporters and photographers. They meet every fortnight and decide who will write stories of events happening in our school to send to Inspire at the Cairns Post.
She also thanked the Holy Cross Parents and Friends Committee for providing the students with a brand new Canon camera.
The special guest was Rachael Knight who was a former student of Holy Cross and used to write stories in the newspaper when she was in Year 3.
She spoke to students about her love of writing and encouraged us to keep writing.
She said the things she learnt best at Holy Cross were the use of apostrophes and commas and using a dictionary and thesaurus.
Since she left school she has always looked in the Cairns Post on Tuesdays to see what stories were there from Holy Cross.
Mrs Hamilton presented the certificates and medals.
Star Awards went to Ameah Reed, Year 4, Jorja Davies, Year 5, and Emma Bancroft Year 6. Zara Stevens won Best Front Page Story for her story “Together in Song”.
Alivia Herlihy, Alyce Jackson and Lucas Russell shared Best News Reports.
Best Feature Article went to Gwyneth Panit for her story titled “Anniversary Marked With Top Bush Dance”.
Then there were the two Encouragement Awards that went to Alyce Jackson and Lachlan Christie.
The two major awards were presented by Miss Knight.
The 2017 Photographer of the Year was Layla Geck and the Reporter of the Year was Zara Stevens.
After the presentations, all students gathered around the large chocolate mud cake to finish off the celebrations.