The Eagle Eye newspaper has eight graduating seniors, and the yearbook staff has six. This means that there are more openings than usual for students who are interested in furthering their journalism skills.  However, in order for a student to become a member of one of these staffs, certain requirements must be met. 

“Newspaper and yearbook are great classes to take because they provide students with real-life skills that can be used in a variety of occupations, including writing, video and Adobe InDesign and Adobe Photoshop skills,” advisor Neda Morrow said. “They allow the students to become published, and they provide a work environment patterned after the real world.”

First, students must take the honors journalism class taught by Mrs. Morrow. The class  teaches students how to write stories and captions as well as how to use the Adobe software needed to make the yearbook and magazine.

“Honors journalism is like no other class I’ve ever taken,” freshman Murphy Churchill said. “It’s not just writing essays. It’s news articles, features, editorials, photography and photoshop. [Mrs. Morrow] can be intimidating, not in a bad way, but in a way that encourages you to be the best person you are and to achieve your highest potential, even if you don’t know it.”

The newspaper staff writes about the current events of LHS. Each six weeks, staff members write at least one news and one feature story, and they put out a magazine each semester.

“A typical day in newspaper consists of signing up for photo opportunities, working with students outside of the class to get interviews for stories, writing your feature or news story and possibly making a video for your feature,” newspaper staff member Jude Ratcliff said. “Much of newspaper’s work load occurs outside the classroom in the form of going to games or events to take pictures  and tweet about what’s happening to keep our media current and constantly updated.”

Yearbook focuses more on photography than newspaper. The yearbook staff goes through pictures from various school events and works on putting their spreads together each day, which are all put together at the end of the year to make the yearbook for students and teachers.

“I wanted to go into yearbook because I love photography more than everything in the world,” yearbook staff member Sarah Carter said. “The aspect of catching a moment and forever freezing someone at one age, in one time, while doing one thing makes me feel so joyful. It gives me pride to know that I can help capture moments throughout our high school experience.”

At the end of the school year, anyone interested in joining one of the staffs must fill out an application about their skills, talents and why they want to join, and each student must have an interview with Mrs. Morrow. Because most students stay in the program from year-to-year, there are usually only a few spots available.

“Newspaper and yearbook are classes that blend fun with hands-on learning,” Morrow said. “In each class, the staff becomes like a family, and they are always there for each other.  The favorite part of my day is spending time with my newspaper and yearbook staffs.”