Competition for high schools in Bulgaria

The student newspaper from the Foreign Language High School Romen Rolan of Stara Zagora won the first AUBG-organized high school competition in journalism. The competition was organized by the AUBG Admissions Office together with the JMC department. A total of 16 high school newspapers fulfilled the requirements and participated in the contest.

The Vasil Levski High School from Velingrad and the Foreign Language High School Lyudmil Stoyanov from Blagoevgrad won the second and third places, respectively.

All Bulgarian high schools were eligible to participate by sending newspapers issued either in print or online. "The participants were asked to send their best issue," Aneta Teneva, admissions counselor and coordinator of the project, said. "Since the jury had English speaking members, the participants were supposed to send some work in English," Director of Admissions Yordanka Melnikliyska said.

"The purpose [of the competition] is to call attention for young journalists and show them the opportunity to study journalism in Bulgaria. This competition could be a good experience for them to reflect on in their work," chair of the JMC department Dinka Spirovska said. "Hopefully they will become more engaged in what they do," she added. "We believe in this strategy, it is part of our policy to connect people emotionally using not only traditional strategies but more personal ways to provoke curiosity in the students to find out more about us," Melnikliyska said.

The competition jury consisted of Spirovska, journalism professor Sandra Earley, Melnikliyska and AUBG student and defacto editor Martin Angelov. The entries were evaluated on strength of content, use of visuals, typography, color, photographs and overall layout and presentation. "Each paper was ranked separately and the winning newspapers were way above the rest. They were significantly better in content, presentation and layout," Spirovska said.

"Two students out of the [three] winning high schools were invited to the AUBG campus together with one teacher coordinating the newspaper," Teneva said. Students Donika Georgieva and Daniela Polyakova, both high school seniors, represented the Romen Rolan high school, together with their editor Zlatina Valeva. "They received a certificate, books provided by the library, a hat and a T-shirt," Teneva added. They also had a chance to visit the campus, meet faculty and attend the JMC Rocks party.

The winning newspaper was first published about ten years ago, but this was the first competition they won. The newspaper is published two times per year, in print, and now Georgieva and Polyakova are working on their second issue, which is supposed to come out in May. All students from the Romen Rolan High School are involved in the newspaper, together with some teachers who edit the newspaper.

"Teachers choose some good articles of the students and they get published," AUBG freshman Georgi Kerpedzhiev, who graduated from the Romen Rolan high school, said. Kerpedzhiev worked on the winning issue which was published in 2009.

"We write about our life in school," Georgieva said, "but also on some general things," Kerpedzhiev added.