Lookout Santa Cruz
2024 Breaking News Pulitzer Prize winner
Now in its third year, Lookout’s student journalism scholarship marked a high point in 2025, drawing 85 submissions from high school students around Santa Cruz County.
Lookout’s Journalism Scholarship is an opportunity for all Santa Cruz County high school students to write a story about an unsung hero in the community who has gone unnoticed for all the good work they do. Students write and submit a 500-900 word story on a community member who they believe needs to be highlighted, conducting interviews and taking photographs to meet Lookout’s challenge of producing a readable, publishable story. They get the opportunity to be a journalist and show their interviewing and writing skills.
Our editors read and reviewed each entry. The top 10 winners get published to our website; the top three get a $500 scholarship. Here are the winners of this year’s scholarship:
Top three
- Max Goodwin, 10th grade, Soquel High School
- Samara Cortazzo, 11th grade, Santa Cruz High School
- Sarah Cobos, 11th grade, Soquel High School
The rest of the top 10
- Sofia Heitmeyer, 10th grade, Soquel High School
- Brady Evans, 10th grade, Soquel High School
- Dylan Turzak, 11th grade, Scotts Valley High School
- Grace Ramsey, 10th grade, Soquel High School
- Talula Garcia, 10th grade, Soquel High School
- Jared Esquivel, 12th grade, Watsonville High School
- Adrian Espindola, 11th grade, Diamond Technology Institute
Lookout in the Classroom serves more than half of Santa Cruz County’s 12,000 high school students – reaching throughout the area’s 10 school districts. We’ve won national recognition – a case study is in the works – and now we want to do more. This innovative program includes free access for public high school students, workshops and curriculum on media literacy, an annual scholarship contest, weekly Educator Alerts and other highly useful and tailored curriculum. The big idea here is to make local news more visible and easier to access every day in our schools.
Thank you again to all the students who applied and wrote such amazing stories. And thank you to all those who helped share this scholarship.
2025 JOURNALISM SCHOLARSHIP FINALISTS
Read or listen to the latest headlines, discover local events, or enjoy a puzzle break – our app has it all!
Something went wrong. Please refresh the page and/or try again.
Sign in by entering the code we sent to , or clicking the magic link in the email.
By registering you agree to our privacy policy.
Get the best of Lookout Santa Cruz directly in your email inbox.
Sending to:
