Bucks high school publication wins two awards

LANGHORNE The student editors of the Neshaminy High School newspaper were recently honored with two awards from the Columbia Scholastic Press Association. One award honored the quality of the newspaper and website, and the other recognized the effort to ban the word

redskin

from the paper.

The latter distinction, the Edmund J. Sullivan Award, is set to be presented to the students at the association's annual awards convocation in New York City in March, the organization said.

The Sullivan award will be given to the Playwickian staff and to the editorial board of the Foothill Dragon Press of Ventura, Calif.

The California students set up a fund-raising page in September to support their peers from Langhorne after the Playwickian had money docked from its activity fund and its adviser was suspended. Those sanctions were levied after the students printed an unauthorized copy of the paper months earlier amid a dispute over whether they could remove the name of their school mascot from a student's op-ed column.

Ultimately, the "Free the Playwickian" campaign the California students organized raised nearly $7,000.

In addition to the Sullivan Award, the Neshaminy students earned the association's gold medal certificate of excellence for high school journalism for their newspaper and website.

- Chris Palmer