Reporting on late-night school board meetings, smiling faces on the first day of school, and complicated bond projects are all part of Noozhawk North County Editor Janene Scully’s dedicated education coverage.
Scully, who has been reporting on the Santa Maria Valley since 1991, has been selected for a 2025 Golden Quill Award by the California School Boards Association.
The Orcutt Union School District nominated Scully for the honor to recognize her decades of excellent reporting on public education.
“We are very fortunate here in Orcutt to have someone who does a phenomenal job representing and sharing our story with our community,” OUSD Superintendent Holly Edds said at last week’s school board meeting at Olga Reed School in Los Alamos.
Edds and the school board presented Scully with a certificate and commemorative pen.
“Janene, we just wanted to thank you for the tremendous job that you do,” Edds said. “You really do have a powerful, important voice representing and sharing all that we do. We appreciate you, and it’s an honor to recognize you with this prestigious award.”
The Golden Quill Awards “highlight the essential role that journalists play in increasing understanding of the objectives, operations, accomplishments, challenges and opportunities related to public schools. The Golden Quill Awards are given in recognition of fair, insightful and accurate reporting on public school news by individual print, broadcast and online news media representatives,” the CSBA states.
Scully has been providing education coverage off and on for her entire career in the Santa Maria Valley.
She started working at the Santa Maria Times in 1991 (Jan. 7, actually — she remembers the exact day) and later served as associate editor of the Times and managing editor of the Lompoc Record and Santa Ynez Valley News.
She joined Noozhawk in 2014 as North County editor, where she manages coverage of Santa Barbara County’s Santa Maria, Lompoc, Santa Ynez and Cuyama valleys. She has invaluable institutional knowledge on local history and community connections.
She is incredibly hardworking, thorough, thoughtful and fair.
“We are very proud that Janene has received this award,” said Tom Bolton, Noozhawk editor in chief. “She is more than deserving. Her commitment to covering education in the communities we serve is second to none.
“Janene’s many years of news reporting in northern Santa Barbara County have given her a deep understanding not only of schools, but also every facet of community life.
“We think she is remarkable, and we appreciate the recognition shown her by the California School Boards Association and the Orcutt Union School District Board of Trustees.”