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The Almanac won 22 awards for its work, including six first-place nods, in this year’s California Journalism Awards, announced this month.
Organized by the California News Publishers Association, the annual competition recognizes excellence in journalism. It drew thousands of entries from across the state and covered work that was produced in 2025.
The Almanac was also a finalist for General Excellence, the annual journalism competition’s top prize. Its sister publication, the Pleasanton Weekly, won first place.
Reporter Arden Margulis’ coverage of violent threats against a local high school won top honors for breaking news. Menlo-Atherton High School was placed on “secure campus” status, a milder form of lockdown, when a threat was reported to the school’s See Something, Say Something tip line. Margulis doggedly pursued the story beyond the initial incident. His follow-up reporting delved into the nature of the alleged threat from a former student and police disputing a nonprofit’s claim that it had stopped a school shooting from happening.
Reporter Jennifer Yoshikoshi’s series of stories on TIDE Academy in Menlo Park won the youth and education category. Yoshikoshi followed every late night meeting, protest and parent demonstration leading up to the Sequoia Union High School District’s controversial decision in February to close the small STEM-focused high school. This month, her coverage continued with the bittersweet commencement ceremony celebrating TIDE’s last graduating class and an investigation into where its reassigned teachers would be working this fall.
A graduate wears an embellished cap before TIDE Academy’s graduation ceremony starts in Los Altos Hills on June 4, 2026. Photo by Seeger Gray. 
Quota owner and baker Eric Shoemaker spreads melted chocolate for Quota dark chocolate and peanut butter bars at his home kitchen in Menlo Park on July 21, 2025. Photo by Anna Hoch-Kenney. 
Three Portola Valley mountain lion cubs were rescued and transported to the Oakland Zoo for rehabilitation on Jan. 26, 2025. Courtesy Oakland Zoo. 
Alberto Pastor, left, and Edith Huamani, right, put finishing touches on a plate of lomo saltado at Sara’s Kitchen in San Mateo on June 17, 2025. Photo by Anna Hoch-Kenney. 
Cheryl E. Leonard listening to granite. Courtesy Cheryl E. Leonard.
“Menlo Park businesses band together to fight downtown housing development,” Margulis’ reporting on the ongoing fight over the city’s plans to redevelop several parking lots, won first place for housing and land-use coverage.
Visual journalist Magali Gauthier’s photography and reporting about unintended impacts on western snowy plovers in Menlo Park won for best photo essay.
The Midpeninsula Life magazine, edited by Linda Taaffe and Karla Kane, won first place for print special sections. Douglas Young won the inside layout category for his creative design of a Food & Drink section story on a Menlo Park man’s home-based business making protein bars. Young also took second place in the same category for his layout of a story about the rebirth of Sushi Sam’s restaurant in San Mateo.
The Almanac’s Arts & Entertainment staff, led by editor Heather Zimmerman, snagged three of the top five places for its A&E coverage. Zimmerman’s stories, “The mighty winds: Music@Menlo concert hails often overlooked ensemble” and “Musician finds the hidden songs in sticks and stones and penguin bones” won second and third places, respectively. Contributor Sheryl Nonnenberg’s “Treasure hunt: How the Filoli estate is rebuilding its collection” took fourth place.
Margulis placed second and third for his enterprise news stories. “Atherton declines to disclose anonymous donor for new BMW police motorcycles” came in second and his series of stories on Menlo Park’s troubled public pool operator, “Menlo Park’s pool operator is sinking, but City Council won’t give it a lifeline” took third place.
Two of Yoshikoshi’s stories were awarded second place: “Portola Valley community works together to rescue mountain lion cubs” in the environmental reporting category and “Locals call for better design of Four Corners intersection” for transportation reporting. Her story on Woodside High School’s student-run record label 1.99 Records came in third in the feature story division.
Stories in The Almanac’s Food & Drink section also placed in the food writing category. Adrienne Mitchel’s story about Sara’s Kitchen, an eatery opened by a Peruvian refugee, won second and Kane’s story on seaweed foraging classes on the San Mateo County coast took fifth.
In all, The Almanac bagged six first-place awards, six second-place awards and three third places, as well as being named a top-five finalist a total of seven additional times. The contest is organized by division, with The Almanac competing against similar news outlets, based on circulation and number of staff.
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