A semester of hard work and commitment was reinforced Nov. 5 at the Northern California conference of the Journalism Association of Community Colleges, where Inquirer editors and staff members took home awards for photography, page design and reporting.  

Adviser Jean Dickinson and journalism professor Barbara Sawyer accompanied 10 Inquirer staff members to the conference, which was held at San Jose State University and included nearly 300 student journalists and faculty from 21 colleges.

Submitted stories, photos and other work published during the 2008-09 school year were judged by professional journalists within the greater Bay Area. Competitions involving on-the-spot writing and photography at the conference also yielded awards.  

Sports editor Christian Villanueva was the big winner, with a fourth-place award for inside page layout in the broadsheet category and two second-place awards for feature story and editorial writing.  

Editor in chief Ariel Messman-Rucker took second-place in the news story category, and Zach Becker, who is no longer on staff, won first-place for feature photo, his second first-place win in that category.  

First semester opinions editor Nick Sestanovich came away with a fourth-place award for on-the-spot opinion writing.  

Photo chief and online editor Chris Corbin and first-semester photographer Ryan Daley each won honorable mentions for their on-the-spot news photos.