At this year’s National High School Journalism Convention in San Francisco from April 20-22, The Crusader newspaper, The Shield magazine, and The Grail literary magazine left their mark on a national level amongst a total of 3,350 students from 31 states. 

“I was excited to showcase two items that are close to my heart: journalism and San Francisco, and share that with my student journalists and others from across the country,” The Crusader adviser Susan Sutton stated.

“The love for journalism rises from inside one’s heart and is projected through the writer’s voice, which hopefully the convention helps to foster amongst students and advisers who attended,” she added, referring to the convention motto: Leave Your Heart Find Your Voice.

The Crusader won a record eight individual writeoff winners–with honorable mentions going to Bryan Santana ’23 for video package editing, Vee Chen ’25 for literary magazine: illustration, Normay Arriola ’24 for newswriting, Angelina Ning ’23 for feature writing, and Sophie Bucker ’24 for editorial writing; excellent awards going to Angela Jia ’25 for press law and ethics, and Ethan Vargas ’23 for sports writing, and the superior award going to Joseph Zuloaga ’23 for news editing/headline/current events.

“I wasn’t expecting to win a place, [but] I am proud of my accomplishment, which has motivated me to feel more confident in my writing abilities and myself,” Arriola stated.

Also, the Quiz Bowl team of Vargas, Bucker, Zuloaga, and Talia Bumanglag ’24, achieved third place. They tied the result from the quiz bowl team at the 2019 Anaheim convention–The Crusader’s best placing ever–and Bumanglag and Bucker made history as the first girls ever on the newspaper quiz bowl team.

“Breaking history as the first girl to be on Riordan’s quiz bowl team is honestly so insane to me. I’ve been involved in a lot of ‘firsts’ at Riordan but I’m super happy and proud to be on the quiz bowl team and even though we ended in 3rd, it’s still a win in my book,” Bumanglag recalled.

Furthermore, The Grail literary magazine won 10th place nationally in the Best of Show competition. Michael Vezzali-Pascual ’88 spearheaded the revitalization of the lit mag.

The convention–in the Hilton San Francisco Union Square hotel–featured a plethora of workshops oriented toward many aspects of journalism such as print, broadcast, and photography.

Aiden Pavon ’25 met Joe Shasky III, sports host on 95.7 The Game, and said, “It was cool to meet other journalists [like Shasky] who reached their goals while I am still working toward reaching mine.” 

“I like how the convention brings people who are completely invested in journalism together,” Naomi Lin ’24, incoming Editor-in-Chief, stated. 

Looking back at his four years in journalism, Ethan Vargas ’23 stated, “From helping out with selling newspaper ads down Ocean Ave to winning an award at the journalism convention, being part of The Crusader will always be something I’ll remember.”

Sutton looks forward to next year’s convention, in Kansas City, hoping for continued success for Riordan’s student media publications.

She concluded, “Going into every convention, I always say that I will be over the moon if we win just one award. Having won eight–which is a Riordan record–far exceeded my hopes but then again, these student journalists do that every day.”