Junior journalists produce school paper

More than 20 middle-school cub reporters at Stillwater Christian School had a hand in the first edition of Cougz News. 

The first edition of the digital-only newspaper was uploaded in November. A second edition is slated to come out in February. 

Starting in September, the sixth- and seventh-graders interviewed, took surveys, wrote articles and selected photographs taken by themselves or others to publish. 

Many of the articles and columns were co-authored. Advisor Renee Wynne, admissions director at Stillwater, said students who had strengths in either interviewing or writing helped each other to produce a final package.

“We all worked together,” sixth-grader Abby Hudson said. “Some people get stuck on writing or choosing photos.”

In addition to articles about service, friendship, fostering and adoption and sports, there is lighter fare including movie and book reviews, a help column, style advice, quizzes and surveys.

“It was exciting [when the paper came out],” said sixth-grader CeCe Fetveit, who worked on an article with classmate Katey Cooley. “I showed all my family members. I was really proud.”

Wynne worked on student newspapers in high school and college. She looked into starting a newspaper as an extracurricular activity when she started working at the school this year because her daughter, Julia, loves writing. It was also a way for students with a variety of interests to participate.

“There are so many ways to participate on it,” Renee Wynne said.

She expected only a few students at the first meeting. To her surprise, more than 20 showed up.

“Some wanted to take photos only, some wanted to do interviews only and some wanted to write,” Wynne said.

Sixth-graders Hudson and Wynne worked on an article that has since gained more significance after their source, World War II veteran Rudy Bergstrom, died Dec. 13 at age 90.

 Hudson and Julia Wynne wrote about Bergstrom’s Big Sky Honor Flight to Washington, D.C., to visit the World War II Memorial in September.

“We went to his house and came up with questions,” Hudson said.

“He talked a lot and that made us feel comfortable,” Julia Wynne said about their plunge into interviewing. “It was so special that we got to interview him.”

Sixth-grader Tessa Harmon wrote about a school community service day.

“I had a really cool service-day experience,” Harmon said. “I thought it would be cool to talk about other service-day experiences through other kids’ eyes.”

In addition to interviewing students, Harmon used surveys to learn about the variety of activities her fellow classmates did for community service. 

“Interviewing was a learning curve for me — learning how to interview, ask the right questions, taking notes and putting them into words and connecting all the information into the first paragraph,” Hudson said.

Coming up with article ideas was one area that students agreed was easier than initially thought.

“We thought it would be really hard to come up with article ideas,” Hudson said adding that once they started brainstorming, ideas flowed.

Renee Wynne helped pare down the ideas and assign them. 

Seventh-grader Elijah Chuang plays basketball and gravitated to writing about sports. His first article was a test in multitasking and a unique aspect was his active participation.

“I played on the seventh-grade basketball team and watched the eighth-grade team. I included a picture my dad took and interviewed my coach via email,” Chuang.

While there isn’t a student newspaper at the high school level, that may change when the middle-schoolers move up.

“If kids grab onto it they may continue it through high school,” Renee Wynne said.

View “Cougz News” at http://wynnefamily999.wix.com/cougznewz-1.

Reporter Hilary Matheson may be reached at 758-4431 or by email at hmatheson@dailyinterlake.com.