‘Passionate’ Suncoast senior earns top journalism honor

Yana Rankine wins General Excellence award in Post contest.

WEST PALM BEACH — Suncoast High School senior Yana Rankine doesn’t shy away from tackling tough topics in her writing, and she does so with a maturity that’s beyond her years, judges said.

Rankine wrote feature articles profiling a Suncoast student who struggles with chronic anorexia, an agender student who changed names and a student with cerebral palsy who navigates the halls with a walker.

These stories, as well as involvement with her school newspaper, earned her the first-place General Excellence award for a student in The Palm Beach Post’s Excellence in High School Journalism Awards contest. Rankine also placed first in feature writing and third in page design.

The judges also recognized Rankine’s commitment to mentoring younger students. Her work stood out so much that one judge with more than 30 years of experience as a journalist said he’d hire her immediately if he could.

Rankine said students appreciated her efforts on the in-depth pieces.

“They were all really thankful that I told their stories,” Rankine said. “Those hard-to-swal- low things are the things that we should talk about.”

Traci Lowe, Rankine’s adviser at The Legend, recruited Rankine to the student newspaper after having her as a student in English class.

“She’s really passionate. She gets so passionate about all these

PHOTOS BY TAYLOR JONES / THE PALM BEACH POST Tim Burke, publisher of The Palm Beach Post, presents Suncoast High School’s Yana Rankine with the first-place General Excellence award for a student Thursday.

Inlet Grove High School’s Brianna Luberisse (with phone) leads her classmates in a fake news quiz during the event at the Embassy Suites in West Palm Beach. From left: Tatyana Moise, Kalayah Samuels and Yorgelis Yambo.