A team of three Northwestern students took first place in March at the Regional High School Computer Fair at Lehigh Carbon Community College.

Laura Hill, Don Luke Winzer and Charles (CJ) Andrews produced the award winning video.

"We finished first in digital video," said Michael Sikora, their teacher. "We beat out the student who took first place last year."

The team will now advance to Dickenson College for the state event in May.

Hill was modest about the win.

"I didn't believe it, honestly," she said. "He got second and I thought ours wasn't even close."

Hill said the 4-minute video was about a young girl driven to suicide out of a desperate sense of loneliness.

"We called it 'Solus' because in Latin that means alone," she explained. "I kind of wrote bullet points a few years ago and we based the video off of that. We filmed at Don Luke's house."

"The video definitely moved the judges," said Sikora. "Laura used excellent camera angles throughout."

Sikora said the students had freedom in choosing whatever they wanted.

"But they did have to meet specific requirements such as creating a story board," he said. "They competed against their peers on the high school level."

Caitlyn Ziemniak also competed at the fair, earning a third place for her work in graphic design.

She is taking an independent study in graphic design with Sikora.

"There were never enough sign ups for the class to run," she said.

"My interest in graphic design actually started with a soil project I did in Mr. [Kevin] Sunday's class which I made extremely pretty," she said. "Then I [took] classes at the Baum School of Art."

Her reputation as a graphic designer is keeping her busy.

"I'm doing a bunch of projects for teachers in the school like the cover for the senior award assembly and I'm designing [a logo] for Ms. McCullough for a marathon she's planning."

Sikora was obviously proud of his students.

"I taught broadcasting for a couple of years, took a break and then went back to it," he said. "I started having the kids get involved with the Emmaus Arts Film Festival.

"I've had several of our kids go down there and compete. I like competition and I think it drives them."