Click to enlarge JONATHAN CANNON / HERALD DEMOCRAT S&S High School teacher Annette Skupin and her journalism class discuss Friday their first edition of the school's new online paper.

BY JONATHAN CANNON

HERALD DEMOCRAT

"Extra! Extra! Read all about it!" The news business has changed since newsies shouted from street corners to sell their editions for a few cents. More than a century later, S&S middle and high school students are learning the new face of the business through their online school paper.

"Since we're totally online, I'm really hoping that they and I figure out what the new media is," said the S&S High School newspaper teacher Annette Skupin. "Really they're on the cutting edge of tomorrow's industry."

The first edition of the The RAMPAGE was posted Friday night with more than 20 articles. Topics range from a feature about a German exchange student to an article profiling the high school's new volleyball coach.

"It is not the same as writing an essay," said the paper's Design Editor Mary Love. "It was not the way I'm used to writing at all."

Staff writer Sara Scott, a freshman, said it was gathering all the required information that surprised her, while Editor-in-chief Rachel Curry, a senior, said it was how quickly a source can clam-up that she found unexpected.

Still, the unforeseen hurdles aren't going to stop the staff of this biweekly publication, who say the project is more than just an interesting elective.

"This whole community is based around the school district," Love said. "Everything that happens in the school affects everyone in the community in some way or another, and I think this newspaper can give people an easier way to access what's going on."

Skupin said that mission was part of the course's genesis.

"One of challenges for the district is since we are so geographically spread out and we don't have a community newspaper that really covers us we have a communication problem from time to time," she said.

Love said she hopes the small publication will help engage readers in the world outside the small communities as well. "In some way or another everything that happens in the world affects them regardless of whether it's in Washington, D.C. or Sherman, Texas," she said.

Still the class is about learning and Skupin said she hopes they're skills for a lifetime she's teaching the young reporters.

"I'm hoping they learn, how to write well, how to read the news well ... (and) some personal responsibility that they can change things in the world," Skupin said. "I'm hoping that as time goes on they see this is something they're good at and want to pursue."

For Curry, who hopes to be a professional journalist one day, that's just the case. But Skupin said she doesn't think the skills will be wasted for others like Scott, who's shooting for medical school.

"I think these are skills they can use whether they go into the industry or not," she said.