La Voz Weekly and the De Anza College students who comprise the paper’s staff brought home several awards from the Journalism Association of Community Colleges Northern California conference Nov. 12.

Five students and adviser Cecilia Deck attended the conference in Sacramento along with 220 students from 20 colleges across Northern California.  

Michael Mannina, 27, communications major and the managing editor of La Voz, won second place in the copy-editing competition and first place for front page layout for the 2010-2011 academic year along with Israel Gutierrez. 

“I was really happy with that award,” said Mannina.

Mannina said the JACC is a great platform to network and meet other counterparts from different colleges, a sentiment echoed by Victor Arredondo, 25, sociology major and the features editor at La Voz. 

“It’s a great place for people who are starting up in journalism or for people who feel that they may have a career in journalism and a great learning experience for those who are new to it,” said Arredondo.

The third place award for news story writing went to Bryce Druzin, 26, a La Voz reporter. The contest was about writing a news story in one hour on a speech given by Jon Ortiz, a journalist from Sacramento Beat who started his career at 40  “It was a powerful story,” said Druzin. 

Leila Forouhi, 29, a freelance reporter with La Voz, was given an honorable mention in the news-writing contest. 

“This was my first time, not just at the JACC, but also at a competition for news writing, and there was a lot of pressure,” said Forouhi. “They gave us one of those stenograph type of things to write our stories, and there were about 30 people from all over Northern California. I think I did a good job though and I’m really proud.”

La Voz won a general excellence award for its online edition and Galen Oback received second place for Illustration. Oback also received an honorable mention in illustration for the 2011-2012 academic year.