Students earn news writing contest mention

They won gift certificates from Barnes & Noble Online and T-shirts. Their work was published on NewsOftheCentury.com.

"It was really a well-done contest," said teacher Melinda Robino, who teaches the class. "The kids did a great job and learned a lot about the Web."

The group spent about three weeks working on the project, according to student Paula Price. The topics of their articles included the discovery of the double-helix structure to DNA; the end of the Korean War; the U.S. Women's National Basketball Team winning the first women's world championship in Santiago, Chile; the release of the first issue of Playboy; and two deadly tornadoes in Flint, Mich., and Worcester, Mass., which killed a total of 210 people. More than 2,100 people were injured.

The students also had to write about how an event impacted 1953 and the present year.

"We didn't realize that much stuff happened," Price said.

Josh LeFevre wrote an editorial called "Dang Commies Try to Take South," as if he were living during the time of the Korean War.

"This war has been a waste from beginning to end," he wrote. "A waste of resource, a waste of lives and a huge waste of money."

The students said they enhanced their Internet research skills and learned how to layout pages.

"I'd want to do it over again," student LaNitra Higgins said.

"We ruled," LeFevre said.