NICEVILLE — More than 200 students, parents, faculty advisors and school administrators gathered Friday evening for the 10th anniversary of the Northwest Florida Press Club’s scholastic journalism contest.

Choctawhatchee High School newspaper editor Megan Lucey’s stewardship of "Smoke Signals" earned her multiple honors, including the club’s highest honor for high school journalism, the Mark Stone Award. The award includes a $1,000 scholarship and is named for the late Mark Stone, a radio news reporter who died of cancer in 1988.

Lucey also won several writing and editing awards for her work, including the Outstanding High School Newspaper Editor Award. "Smoke Signals" itself was the unanimous choice of a three-judge panel that selected the paper for the club’s General Excellence award.

As a newspaper staffer, "I touched a lot of lives, personally or through my writing," Lucey said. "As editor, I was able to make changes in content and style to make the publication more appealing to the students in our school."

The paper’s magazine-style cover photo and redesigned masthead prompted several favorable comments from the judges, as did a large spread on dating through the decades. The story included photos from the 1950s through the 90s to illustrate the cars, clothing and hair styles common to the decades covered.

Lucey’s selection as editor capped seven years worth of student publication work that began in the sixth grade and ended with experience as a news reporter, sports reporter and editorial writer before becoming editor-in-chief. She single-handedly wrote and photographed a special Hurricane Georges supplement for "Smoke Signals," which included coverage of Choctawhatchee High School’s role as a hurricane shelter.

Lucey will join her adviser, longtime press club member and journalism contest co-founder Linda Evanchyk, as a teaching assistant for a six-week journalism course thi summer.

She takes particular pride in "Kid’s Kolumn," an elementary school newspaper Lucey helped to create as a tool for bolstering literacy for that age group.

Lucey hopes someday to work as a reporter for a large metropolitan daily newspaper, or to write for a sports magazine. An accomplished soccer player, Lucey has been chosen as goalkeeper for the team at Palm Beach Atlantic, where she has been accepted and plans to study journalism.

Also in the contest’s high school division, the Fort Walton Beach High School yearbook "Valhalla" won the General Excellence Award for that category. "Valhalla" Editor Kelly Billingsly was named Outstanding High School Yearbook Editor.

"Ram Pages," the Ruckel Middle School yearbook, won General Excellence in the middle school division.

Lindsay Secott, of Ruckel Middle School, won the Outstanding Middle School Journalist award this year for her work on "Ram Pages."

Also in the middle school division, Davidson Middle School’s "Panther Press" won General Excellence for middle school newspapers.

For the past decade, the Northwest Florida Press Club competition has awarded thousands in scholarships and launched careers in news media and related occupations.

Co-sponsors are the Destin Log and the Emerald Coast Public Relations Organization. Judges from virtually all area media critique student work in newspapers, broadcast production and yearbooks.

Evanchyk, who also is faculty advisor to "Smoke Signals" and a countywide school publication called "The County Line," was pleased with the progress of the contest over the past 10 years.

"The contest has become bigger and more beneficial than I ever thought it would when I first conceived the idea," she said. "I never thought it would grow to the stature it has now. It’s been rewarding to see so many students get recognized in journalism who weren’t recognized in the past."

Jeff Newell, who as press club president a decade ago worked with Evanchyk to get the club involved, said he also had no idea the contest would draw twice as many people to this week’s banquet as the first one did in 1990.

"The contest originally had two goals, to develop home-grown talent for the area’s news media and to provide a forum to improve student journalism," Newell said. "After 10 years, it’s really gratifiying to see that the competition is still meeting those goals and providing scholarship money for tomorrow’s journalists."

Newell predicted the contest would grow even more over the next 10 years, suggesting that someday school web sites would join newspapers, yearbooks and broadcast entries. He also expressed hope that "over the next decade, we’ll be able to find funding for more scholarships, and help launch more careers."