On April 17, The Pinion staff went to UH Manoa to attend the Hawaii High School Student Journalism Awards Luncheon from ~12-1 PM where they won 10 awards in different categories.
The Hawaii High School Journalism Awards Association (HHSJA) hosts their annual luncheon at UH Manoa to commemorate and acknowledge the work done by student journalist organizations across the state. This year, some of The Pinion staff submitted their work to the HHSJA, where they won best in state for illustration; second place in writing and design; third place in photo and website format; and fourth place for the overall best in state award.
Cheska Orias (℅ ‘26), the editor-in-chief of The Pinion, won seven awards at the event. Orias won first place in the illustration and poster categories and third place in the review, action, candid, portrait, and layout and design categories. Additionally, they won the Most Valuable Staffer award, which is an award an individual receives based on votes from other staff members within their journalism organization. The first submission Orias chose to speak about was their action candid photo, a photo of Serena Muniz (℅ ‘24) leading the senior song in the rain. Orias said that when it started raining, their initial reaction was to panic, because they didn’t want the camera to get wet; however, after taking the photos, they were incredibly impressed at the results. Orias’ peers, including the former editor-in-chief of The Pinion, made tons of positive comments about the photo, and Muniz’s friends even asked Orias to send them the file so they could share it to Muniz.
“In my own words, or some of my friends’ words, it looked majestic or ethereal in a way,” said Orias. “I don’t want to sound egotistical, but I feel like that was one of my best photos.”
Another submission Orias spoke about was their poster, “Journalists Change the World,” which depicts a diverse group of journalists, ranging from a student journalist to a war correspondent, surrounding a globe. Orias made several iterations of the drawing and said that once they got the concept down, the challenging part was perfecting the final details to relate it more to journalism.
“I took some of my own photography, put it in and just blurred it a bit to make it kind of match, because it is digitalized and having real people with drawings would look weird”, said Orias. “I’m also proud of the people, I tried to make it diverse because I didn’t want to make it just traditional white people, because I’m surrounded by a lot of diversity in the Pinion.”
Dominic Niyo ( ℅ ‘26) made submissions in the writing and design categories. In the writing category, he won 2nd place for his investigative piece “Remembering Dawn Momohara,” and 3rd place for his feature “Underdog Defeats Political Giant.” In the design category, he won 3rd place for his Hall of Honor spread, which is a collaborative design between him and Cheska Orias (℅ ‘26). One piece he was particularly proud of was his article about Dawn Momohara, a former McKinley student who was sexually assaulted and killed on campus in 1977. He said he had been following the case since his 8th grade year, and when he first joined The Pinion in his freshman year, he proposed to write about the topic to his adviser, Cynthia Reves. However, because there hadn’t been any updates to the case, she suggested against it. Three years later, the police announced an arrest in the case, which prompted Niyo to start researching and contacting people right away.
“It took me months to find sources, but after emails I sent, deep research, looking through the school newspapers and yearbooks, I came across several posts made by the victim’s friend, and I had the opportunity to get into contact with her,” said Niyo. “I remember doing the interview, and it was a very emotional experience, even for me. [Momohara’s friends] could remember so many specific details about the day they found Dawn and their personal connections with her.”
Jacky Oasay (℅ ‘26) submitted her article “Tigers End Five-Year Drought,” a collaborative piece between her and Dominic Niyo (℅ ‘26) about the McKinley football team’s homecoming win against Kaimuki High School—their first win in five years. Oasay said she was proud that she got to work with another Pinion journalist on the article, but it was difficult to schedule interviews with the athletes because of their constrained schedules. Another struggle she faced was writing the article in a way that did the story justice. She wanted to express that it wasn’t just the football team’s win that made this such a big event, but the circumstances surrounding their win as well.
“Trying to put in the piece that we’re talking about how we won, and it’s been like, a few years since we won, and also that we won on such a big night—I think finding a way to make it stand out and that entire thing was our topic and not just us winning was a challenge,” said Oasay.
Nhi Nguyen (℅ ‘27) submitted her editorial “What a generation is” alongside her infographic, which accompanied the article. Despite not placing, Nguyen said she was proud of her article and happy that the Pinion as a whole received awards and recognition at the event. However, something that disappointed her was the lack of proper critique she received from the judge regarding her article. Instead of commenting on her writing, they commented on a trivial aspect of her artwork.
“I left out Gen X somewhere between Millennials and Boomers,” said Nguyen. “That’s what my judge commented on—they didn’t mention anything about my writing, so that was kind of not great.”
Malia Manuel (℅ ‘25) submitted her news article “Bridging McKinley Student Artists with Art of the Past,” an article about “Home of the Tigers,” an art exhibit at the Honolulu Museum of Art which featured art pieces from both current McKinley students and alumni. Manuel said that even though she was a little disappointed about not winning anything from the HHSJA, she received recognition through other organizations, and she was proud that she got to cover such a big community event.
“I think that writing that article was just a giant learning experience, honestly, because before that, I had never written anything that huge, especially about McKinley,” said Manuel. Kena Anien (℅ ‘27) submitted his photo essay ”Homecoming,” which captures the spirit of McKinley’s Homecoming pep rally and assembly, as well as the Lighting of the M festival activities. He was challenged by the fact that he didn’t have much experience in photography, but he was ultimately proud about how his photos turned out, and appreciated the feedback he received from his photography subjects regarding the quality of his work.
“I liked how they looked, and I got a lot of good responses from the people who were photographed or the people who saw my photos through our social media,” Anien said.
