Heritage Talon newest edition
Posted on Wednesday, September 3, 2008
A committee of adults worked for months to name the new school, while an entire team of architects designed the terraced court yards. Teachers met last spring and to talk about the culture of the new high school and suggest lyrics for the school song.
While adults made most of the decisions about Rogers Heritage High School, students are in charge of their new publications. Both the Heritage newspaper and yearbook were developed by students at summer journalism camps and during the first weeks of school.
"The school's name is Heritage, so we get to start the heritage of Heritage," said Hannah Moore, one of a trio of editors of the Heritage Talon.
"It's cool. We'll be able to look back at it all in 30 years," co-editor Maria Clardy said.
The Talon is the newest student newspaper in Rogers and while its staff is small, their ambitions aren't. Their first issue, due out at the end of the month, will cover Flight Nite - when the school met the football team for the first time, Frisco Festival, the person inside the War Eagle costume and the new principal.
Moore and co-editor Camra Beaird went to journalism camp this summer where they won two awards and worked on a design for the paper's masthead. Originally they considered calling the paper the War Eagle Screamer, but changed it to the Talon.
Meanwhile, the Yearbook staff is busy selling ads to businesses in the community and planning an event to unveil the name of their new publication.
"It'll be like a movie preview - a trailer," co-editor Georgia Carter said, explaining that the broadcast journalism class may be asked to help.
They chose the name, which is still top secret, at camp where they worked on the design of the cover and sample pages.
The Yearbook staff has a special challenge because no seniors attend Heritage High School this year. Usually seniors or their parents buy most of the ads in a high school yearbook, sponsor Laura Tharel said. Without those ads, her staff will have to canvas local businesses and try to replace the revenue.
The district provided most of the basic equipment the students need, Tharel said, but there are a
Everyone on the staff of 21 will be expected to sell, Carter said. They need to sell two pages of ads for a grade in class and three pages to get a free yearbook.
"I'm not good at selling," Carter admitted, explaining that she made her father do the sales when she brought home school fundraisers.
Co-editor Kristen Hoover is a little more confident.
"I have a job so I talk to people all the time," she said. "But I only sell them sandwiches, not advertising. "Hoover works at Subway sandwiches.
The class divided the city into sectors with one team assigned to each. They'll begin with personal contacts, Tharel said, including the businesses where their parents work. She's trying to keep a list of each students'contacts so businesses don't get multiple sales calls.
It's also an advantage to the advertisers that their ads won't compete with senior ads for attention, Clark said.
The yearbook will be traditional, Carter said, but Hoover is planning some humorous sidebars. It will have a theme, which is also a secret.
She's excited about producing a book that she'll be able to show people far into the future.
While the yearbook staff is large enough to fill a class, the newspaper editors will rely on students in Tharel's Journalism One class to help fill the paper.
"We make a pretty good team," Clardy said. The three girls are also friends, she explained. Clardy and co-editor Camra Beaird were in the same journalism class last year.
For the first year, the Talon will probably be produced every other month, but it will be monthly next year, Beaird said.
Each paper they produce will be saved in the school's archives, just like the Rogers High School paper, so they'll be able to come back some day and see exactly where they began and how far they've gone.
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