The Pacemaker award is considered the highest honor for college student-run publications and is based on content, quality of writing, leadership, design, photography, art and graphics.

The winning issue of Flux, which is produced annually by students from the UO School of Journalism and Communication, covered complex environmental issues.

The issue featured a cover story, “Burning Questions”, about the debate over the Umatilla Chemical Depot in northeastern Oregon.

Other stories included topics such as coyote eradication in the West and the renewal of life on Mount St. Helens 20 years after its eruption.

Stories for this issue were the result of a new class called Topics in Environmental Writing, which began in Fall 1999. Assistant Professor Carol Ann Bassett, who proposed and taught the class, hoped to ignite in her students a passion about the environment and environmental writing. She encouraged students to get out of the classroom and into the field to learn first-hand about their chosen topics. Students interviewed experts, as well as those affected by an issue, in order to write comprehensive articles.

In addition to winning the Pacemaker award, the 2000 issue of Flux also received many other impressive accolades.

The Columbia Scholastic Press Association presented the magazine with 17 awards for creative art and design, including a Certificate of Merit for overall design, first place for the general use of typography throughout a magazine, the Gold Medal Award and four All-Columbian Awards.

"Flux is an attractive, informative, interesting magazine&Mac226; a gift to all who turn its pages. Much praise to the writers, photographers editors and staff, advisers and professors for an elegant piece of journalism," the judges wrote in their summary.