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

The rest of the top 10

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