By Sloane Samberson
Staff Writer

SAN DIEGO – A typical staff of 25 cannot amount to the dedication of the Southwest Shadow staff at Southwest Career and Technical Academy in Las Vegas, Nev. With only five students on staff, their job as journalists becomes even harder in keeping an updated array of articles, meeting deadlines and managing stress.

Consisting of sophomores Jen Chiang and Brittnie Truax, junior Alexandra Nedelcu, seniors Jacob Berroya and Bree Eure and adviser Matthew LaPorte, this small yet powerful staff knows how to appeal to readers.

Their news site southwestshadow.com, won an National Scholastic Press Association Online Pacemaker at the awards ceremony on Saturday at the JEA/NSPA Spring National High School Journalism Convention at the Hilton San Diego Bayfront.

“It’s mind blowing to think about being a Pacemaker finalist,” said Nedelcu, before the awards ceremony. “It’s always an in comparable feeling when all of your hard work pays off, especially considering that our staff is so limited. We are setting very substantial standards for the journalism members to come.”

The Southwest Shadow staff vouches that working on a five-person staff is not always easy, and communication is key. They are constantly keeping in touch, making sure all stories come out close to perfection. The staff posts at least one news story each day.

“There is rarely an instance where we go without our daily story. It’s also always quality over quantity, by all means. We are a very tight-knit staff, so it works in our favor as far as social terms, as well,” Nedelcu said.

To keep the staff motivated, LaPorte created the motto of “food is on the way” to keep the staff working hard with their delicious prize in mind.

“Food is a very effective form of motivation, especially when we are staying after school to complete our work,” Nedelcu said.

Just like any other staff, they do face challenges in keeping all tasks in check. Sometimes stories are overlooked or even overworked.

“Because there are five of us and there is a lot of work to be done, it gets challenging to monitor the progress of stories being completed,” Chiang said. “It has trained me to arrange my schedule for when I should do my work, post, and help my classmates out.”

Not only did Southwest Shadow win a Pacemaker, it won Best of Show first place for website at the convention. Best of Show is a contest at each convention where participating publications are judged on site.

“The feeling was crazy. For a second I couldn’t believe what I had just heard because the Pacemaker was our goal for so long. I still can’t believe it when I think about it,” Nedelcu said.

LaPorte sums up their success the best:

“All their diligent work in class and after hours, is why they won these awards. I’m extremely proud of my staff,” LaPorte said.