Fredericksburg, Va. — McLean’s media teams, composed of The Highlander newsmagazine, The Clan yearbook, The Tartan literary magazine and broadcast channel WMHS News received numerous awards at the Virginia High School League Media Championships on Oct. 11.

Both The Highlander and The Clan were bestowed the rank of VHSL Trophy Class, the highest award for a publication on the statewide level.

“We really put a lot of work into the yearbook, and getting an award really makes everyone feel accomplished for all the hard work that went into it,” senior and yearbook editor-in-chief Hanna Lee said.

The Highlander notably swept the first, second and third place awards for In-Depth/Informative Feature, with stories about refugees, transgender students and student-athletes with concussions. The stories, respectively titled “Finding Refuge,” “Beyond Gender” and “Downplaying the Impact” garnered high praise from judges.

“Finding Refuge” and “Beyond Gender” are also finalists for the National Scholastic Press Association’s Story of the Year award. “Beyond Gender” is nominated in the Feature Story category, while “Finding Refuge” is nominated as a Diversity Series.

“Writing ‘Finding Refuge’ was definitely one of the hardest [articles] to write because we wanted to make sure the article did justice to the people whose stories we were telling,” former The Highlander managing editor Sanskriti Neupane said. “At first, we didn’t even know refugees existed at McLean and the article focused primarily on the children of refugees…it was only later that we realized refugees did exist at McLean and it was their stories that we should be focusing on.”

All three in-depth features were given a boost due to their timeliness. “Finding Refuge” was released one day after President Donald Trump issued a travel ban on citizens and refugees from six countries. “Beyond Gender” was published a few weeks before Supreme Court arguments in the transgender rights case Gloucester County v. GG were scheduled to begin, and “Downplaying the Impact” hit the presses in the midst of high school football season.

In addition to sweeping the in-depth features, The Highlander newsmagazine garnered first place awards in editorials, reviews, news/feature photo, sports photo and inside page design.

The Clan received a first place in concept packaging and candid photo. WMHS News won first place in news package, while The Tartan won first place in table of contents.

A full listing of all the awards won by McLean media can be found below:

The Highlander Newsmagazine

Feature: In-Depth/Informative (including Sports):

• 1st Place: Helen Bloom, Carlyn Kranking, Sanskriti Neupane & Aisha Singh — “Finding Refuge”
• 2nd Place: Sri Medicherla & Melanie Pincus — “Beyond Gender”
• 3rd Place: Rustin Abedi & Siddarth Shankar — “Downplaying the Impact”

Editorials Feature:

• 1st Place: Sri Medicherla — “McLean should not implement AP Capstone”
• 3rd Place: Sri Medicherla — “Vote yes for meals tax referendum”

Review:

• 1st Place: Catherine Zysk — “The Undoing Project reveals humanity behind brilliant discovery”

Photo: News/Feature:

• 1st Place: Shanzeh Umerani — “Beyond Gender”

Photo: Sports:

• 1st Place: Imani McCormick — “Amiracle”

Newsmagazine Cover:

• 2nd Place: Shanzeh Umerani — “A Dying Spirit”

News: Sports:

• 2nd Place: Jackson Payne — “School board vs. scoreboard”

Inside Page Layout/Spread:

• 1st Place: Bryan Chung — “Calling out catcalling”
• 2nd Place: Bryan Chung — “Beyond Gender”

Advertising:

• 2nd Place: Bryan Chung — C2 Education
• 3rd Place: Bryan Chung — McLean Crew Club

Infographics/Secondary Packaging:

• 2nd Place: Bryan Chung — “McLean Students’ Reality”
• 3rd Place: Bryan Chung — “Sitting to Death”

The Clan Yearbook

Concept Packaging:

• 1st Place: The Clan staff

Candid Photo:

• 1st Place: Sib Hameed — “Bromance”

People Coverage:

• 2nd Place: Sami Lawrence — “Juniors Reveal Who They Are”

Clubs/Organization Coverage:

• 3rd Place: Ramneek Hazrah — “Tag Along”

The Tartan Literary Magazine

Table of Contents:

• 1st Place: Avery Kang

Concept Packaging:

• 3rd Place: The Tartan staff

Cover:

• 3rd Place: Avery Kang & Jina Kwon

WMHS Broadcast News

News Package:

• 1st Place: Maddy Anderson, Kameron Bateman, Ben Davis & Matt Shaheen — “Highlander 5K”
• 2nd Place: Jessie Seppi, Izzy Proietti & Kaela Moskowitz — “New CAVA in McLean”