and "Youth News" yesterday won the rookie of the year award at a prestigious Young Reader Conference in the US for its student/newspaper partnership.

The award was announced at the St. Louis conference sponsored by the Newspaper Association of America Foundation.and Youth News submitted Youth News sections that appear every other Thursday in the newspaper that are written and edited by students and are distributed to the Island's schools through the newspaper's Newspapers in Education programme.

The entry was supported by descriptions of how Youth News ? which has a special edition in today's newspaper on its "The Beast" good deeds award programme ? and the newspaper collaborate and by testimonials from young people, teachers and community leaders.

"We are thrilled to receive this recognition for the Youth News programme," said Editor Bill Zuill. "This is a true collaborative effort between the Youth News group started and headed by Sarah Fellowes and the newspaper's staff, most notably education coordinator Jennifer Hind, production manager-pre-press/computer systems Hope Robbins and deputy chief photographer Tamell Simons.

"But the real credit belongs to the teenagers, who are drawn from all of the Island's schools, who have worked so hard to make this a compelling and relevant publication for the Island's young people.

"At a time when the news can be dominated by bad news about young people, Youth News demonstrates how many terrific young people Bermuda has and what a credit they are to the Island."

Mr. Zuill said he believed that Youth News and the Newspapers in Education programme would grow and flourish, with plans in hand to expand the size of the publication for the beginning of the next school year.

Other newspapers winning awards at the conference included the Los Angeles Times, the St. Petersburg (Florida) Times and the Boston Globe.