Bluestone: a Gold Crown three-peat winner

The 2002-03 Bluestone yearbook won top honors in the College Media Advisers 2004 National Media Convention. For the third straight year, Bluestone won the Collegiate Gold Crown Award from Columbia Scholastic Press Association. Gina Indellicate, editor of the 2003-04 Bluestone and class section editor of the winning yearbook, says, "The Bluestone stands out because it has shown consistent excellence in the areas of design, coverage and theme. Our book continues to show a traditional and classy look."

Future designers hang with the in-crowd

Randstad North America's creative and technical division exhibited works by 33 JMU graphic design seniors in its Washington, D.C., offices from April 16 to 29. "This show will give these up-and-coming designers, as well as professionals, a chance to network and possibly meet a future co-worker," said Randstad market manager Seth Novick at the exhibit's opening gala.

Getting their foot in the door of a national talent agency is quite a coup, says graphic design program director Trudy Cole-Zielanksi. "Our students' work has also received accolades from numerous regional, national and international juried competitions, including HOW, PRINT and The Art Directors Club of Metropolitan Washington."

Randstad is the fourth-largest staffing organization in the world, with 2,242 offices in 13 countries. Works exhibited in Randstad's D.C. creative office included a poster by senior Oleg Yagolnikov (top), representing Fur Free, an animal rights group.

The best is a Breeze

The Breeze won second place for best all-around nondaily college newspaper in the Society of Professional Journalists 2004 Mark of Excellence awards. Drew Wilson ('04), Alison Fargo ('05) and Adam Sharp ('05) won third place for best editorial writing. Columnist Zak Salih ('04) took third place.

Securing the airways

Computer science majors Joshua Blake, Justin Creasy and Marcus O'Malley and computer information systems major Kevin Ferrell won first place in the national Microsoft Windows ChallengE 2004 competition, "Make the World a Safer Place." Their winning project is an airport security checkpoint device designed to help protect the millions of people who fly daily. The mobile handheld device collects information from a passenger's boarding pass and uses a chemical sniffer to sense and identify potential high-security risks posed by baggage or passengers. Computer science professor Ramon A. Mata-Toledo served as team adviser.