By DIANE GASPER-O'BRIEN

dobrien@dailynews.net

Being named a finalist for one of the top awards in the country is great.

Winning it is even better.

At the national high school journalism convention in Washington earlier this month, Hays High School's newspaper, the Guidon, was awarded a Pacemaker, the highest honor given to high school newspapers by the National Scholastic Press Association.

Bill Gasper, adviser of the Guidon, and several current staff members were on hand to celebrate in Washington.

The staff was excited about being chosen as one of 50-some Pacemaker finalists earlier this fall. But making the final cut?

"All-Kansas, that was our main goal last year," Gasper said of an all-state honor the staff also won last spring. "(At nationals), there is California, New York, Texas. You're talking some pretty good-sized schools."

The Guidon was the only Kansas paper of the 15 papers that received Pacemakers in the 16-or-fewer-pages category.

The only other Kansas newspaper that won a Pacemaker this year was the Harbinger, the newspaper from Shawnee Mission East High School in Prairie Village that was honored in the 17-or-more-pages division.

Publications were judged on coverage and content, quality of writing and reporting, editorial leadership, in-depth reporting, layout and design, and photography, art and graphics.

"This is like the Super Bowl for the journalism department," said Tom Albers, assistant principal at HHS and supervisor of the career and technical education department.

Albers said experiences gained from participating in hands-on programs are "invaluable."

"Every person has their own niche," he said, "and that's what's great about it."

Albers said he remembers one of his first conversations with Gasper when he took over as journalism instructor on an interim basis back in 2004.

"He said when he came here, he wanted to take the newspaper and yearbook to a different standard than it's been," Albers said.

Gasper gives credit to the students, both former and current.

The staff his first year had about eight students; the Guidon staff this year has 19.

"Some of those kids came in and hung with the program; it was all a building process," Gasper said. "Because of their efforts, the paper continued to get better, and people took more of an interest in it, and it started to attract more students. They deserve a lot of credit for hanging in there."

He added that last year's management team set high goals.

"Really good leadership with Thayne Griffin and Michael Raven," Gasper said of his editor-in-chief and assistant editor for the 2008-09 school year. "They were fairly well-focused on what they wanted, to have a top-notch newspaper. And they kept their plan."

Griffin now attends Drake University in Des Moines, Iowa, and said he was hoping for a call from his former adviser.

"Mr. Gasper called me after they announced it (in Washington)," Griffin added. "I was excited."

Griffin said that "at the start of the year, we were just trying to get All-Kansas for the first time. So Pacemaker is icing on the cake."

Several students on the Pacemaker-winning staff graduated last spring, but "we've got a number of them back, got some super talented kids again this year," Gasper said.

"We've got some outstanding writers, a good group of kids from different areas in the school, really well-rounded kids," he added.

They all have high expectations again, Gasper said.

"They absolutely have the goal to repeat being All-Kansas; they want to be an annual winner," he said. "They're pretty dedicated and are set on wanting to do as well as last year."

Gasper said he was thinking even before they left for the conference where he would hang the plaque he knew they were receiving for being a Pacemaker finalist.

Now, he has to find room for two plaques in Room 113.

"I guess now," he said, "we've got to rearrange some things on the wall."