Publications win awards

By Rodd Cayton, On-line Forty-Niner

April 21,1998

WEST HOLLYWOOD - An afternoon of skin-scorching heat paid off after sundown for Rick Alonzo.

The Forty-Niner sports editor took first place Saturday at the California Intercollegiate Press Association Conference.

 

Alonzo's story on the UCLA-Stanford tennis match - his first-ever article on the sport - beat out about 25 other sportswriters from around the state.

 

"When I found out I'd be covering tennis," Alonzo said, "I just shook my head and thought 'Oh, great.'"

 

Alonzo said he thought all he would have to show for his four hours under the blistering sun would be a sunburn, but he was wrong.

 

"Cal (Berkeley), UCLA and UC Santa Barbara had dominated most of the awards," he said. "Those schools have so much money to fund their papers.

 

"But the on-site competition leveled the playing field because all that mattered was writing ability. It's a great feeling to know I topped the writers from the so-called, more prestigious schools."

 

Photographer Mediha Fajzagic DiMartino took home a first-place award in the Feature Photograph Competition for her shot of a child with a soap bubble at a West Hollywood park.

 

"This gives me encouragement," DiMartino said. "It shows that if you really want something, it's attainable."

 

Of the 21 universities present, Cal State Long Beach was the only one to capture multiple first-place plaques Saturday.

 

Linda Prendez, the Forty-Niner's editor in chief, said she was proud of her crew's accomplishments.

 

"It's our first taste of real competition," Prendez said. "It's good to see that we rank up there with the best."

 

Prendez tied for third in the News Writing Competition.

 

At CIPA, the Daily Forty-Niner and University Magazine took home eight awards in all, including five plaques for the mail-in competition.

 

CSULB mail-in winners were University Magazine editor in chief Therese Quesada, photo editor Jay Seidel and photographers Mike Dorsey and Christina Pompa.

 

For the mail-in competition, the newspapers sent in their best work from last March until February of this year.

 

In related news, Forty-Niner Advertising Manager Jamie Eggleston earned first and third-place prizes last month at the College Newspaper Business and Advertising Managers convention in Atlanta.

 

Eggleston's winning ads were created for last semester's "Basketball at the Beach" special section and for Anthony's Studio 7.

 

CIPA writing and photography contestants covered events around the UCLA campus, and wrote stories and developed pictures at the offices of the Daily Bruin.

 

While the newsroom proved sufficient to handle the needs of the writers, complaints were heard about the lack of photo facilities at UCLA.

 

"The Daily Bruin staff was very disorganized," Dorsey said. "They were changing the rules as the event was taking place. They didn't have the facilities to handle 20 photographers at once, so all of us had to huddle around one sink to process our film."