A memorable trip for all

Kim Rizzitano

The Columbia convention is a time to be remembered and reflected on with a smile on the face and laughter in the heart. When the enormous coach bus came to pick everyone up at 5 am, all anyone could think of was how tired they were. As soon as we got on the road, however, all the passengers perked up and went about busying themselves for the long trip ahead.
When we first walked into Lerner Hall, I was overwhelmed with the commotion and intensity of all of the visiting students. Each was there for a purpose, a purpose to prove that their school had talent and deserved to be recognized. Pembroke High School students came with the same idea along with the hopes to learn a boat load of knowledge and gain more experience.
Several classes I visited were quite satisfactory, however, one that particularly stands out from the rest was a video/broadcast class taught by Marcy McGinnis, former NBC vice-president and current dean of Stony Brook University. This class, which was called Working in Broadcast News, informed me on several career choices in the field of journalism as well as a selection of colleges that had an excellent communications program. In addition, McGinnis retold her story of success.
This class was greatly informative and helpful; I found myself scribbling notes all over my notebook through out the class. Also, McGinnis’ own personal story taught me the value of preparation and where to start when trying to break into the world of journalism.
In addition to this class, I found the critique with Kathleen Zwiebel immensely helpful. She offered up advice for future printings of Sentinel as well as corrections for the present. Her positive attitude spurred the Sentinel staff to make useful changes in the paper.
Columbia over all was a positive and helpful experience. The end of the trip only brought frowns and sighs as people loaded their luggage into the undercarriage and trudged onto the bus. I came home with a greater understanding for the journalism world and have only become a better journalist because of the Columbia convention.

Breathe!! Breathe!!

Lauren Mulkern

Breathe!! Breathe!! It won’t be so bad!
This is what was running through my mind before I entered the critique at Columbia University.
I attended a three day convention for Journalism in order to learn beneficial things that I could bring back to the Pembroke Sentinel.
Seeing how Pembroke got torn to pieces last year, I was very nervous about this year.
Luckily, we were complimented head to toe. We are known for our little mistakes that are very noticeable. However, we are working hard to improve this situation.
The biggest problem the person who was critiquing us had been the little mistakes. Fortunately, these are simple to correct and we are well on our way to being awarded the Newspaper Crown.
Due to a late arrival, I did not attend any classes on Wednesday. We missed the first two classes all together and felt awkward when I tried to enter a class during the third session. After lunch, I attended the critique which was very beneficial. The critique ran late and instead of rushing to the last class, myself and other members of the newspaper decided to discuss what to fix in the future.
On Thursday I was eager to learn. I attended the For Editors Only Class. I expected a lot out of this class and was semi disappointed. However, I did learn a lot of childish ways to control the newspaper staff. After being bored for approximately 45 minutes, I was feeling very tired. This led to me going to the wrong building for the Modern In-Depth Reporting Class. This was disappointing because I was looking forward to it. However, I decided to study the map and figure out what to do for the next classes so I would not get lost again. Controversial Issues was very productive. It made me want to start writing about controversial issues. We are very fortunate and are eligible to write about these things. Other states are not so fortunate. After a heads up from my advisor, I decided to go to Blogs that matter. He informed me that we would be writing blogs in the future so I thought it would be a good decision to attend this class. Unfortunately, this was a very boring class and I did not learn anything new. My favorite class out of the whole convention was Working in Broadcast News. It was a very successful class and I am eager to get into that field in the future. I have always been interested in broadcast journalism. However, I was apprehensive because I was not very educated on it. After attending this class, I realize this is something I really want to think about doing in the future.
The first class I attended on Friday was It’s your Opinion: Get It Right! It literally put me to sleep. It officially wins the most boring class. After a few late nights in a row, you need a class that is entertaining. This was the complete opposite. I decided to take a break after this class because I was so tired and need to recoup. The next thing I attended was the CSPA’S top crown review. This showed all of the schools that won awards and how awesome their papers were. I will be honest, I am jealous.
This Convention was so helpful to me and the Pembroke Sentinel. I am very eager to put the things I learned into action.

“Those who can't do, teach.”

“Those who can't do, teach.”
This unfortunate expression cannot apply less with the Columbia Scholastic Press Association. As I sat slightly overwhelmed but eager in the sessions, I realized that these lecturers were really experienced, both locally and globally. It became painfully obvious to me by the end of the first session that they had come to seriously enlighten and educate us about journalism. Even more surprising was the intense discipline of the students at the convention. These kids were seriously hardcore. I sat in that first class, satisfied with my perfectly professional notebook and pen. I felt that, with my glasses perched on my nose, I looked every bit the serious journalism student. Oh, I was so young and naive then.
Suddenly, a boy who looked no older than 14 took the seat next to me. He pulled out a sleek Mac, powered it up, and logged onto the Internet. He then proceeded to whip out his Palm Pilot, upon which he jabbed notes onto the entire 45 minutes of the session. I shrunk into my seat, feeling so amateur with my ancient pen and outdated paper.
Besides the educational (and apparently embarrassing) sessions, the campus of Columbia itself is worthy of praise. For a high school student from suburbia America, the large lecture halls were a refreshing change and was a chance for me to experience a typical college environment. The comfy seating also did much to soothe my haggard, aching self after miles of trekking and climbing countless flights of stairs. They also provided a place for me to mourn the sudden decline of my lovely open-toed wedges, who suffered from the torrential downpour.
That hectic Wednesday afternoon we arrived, we all ran straight to a Hamilton classroom, bustled in, sat down, and then realized (several minutes later) what we had done in horror...we were sitting in an Advisers' class. Hello, embarrassment!
Following that, I attended a session about the culture war over citizen journalism; the speaker lectured adamantly against the dramatic increase of blogging “journalists”. Contesting established media versus the blogosphere, he declared citizen journalism as 'merely amateur hour' (yikes). My final session of the day would bring me to another classroom, where we learned about the possibilities in the job market for journalists; opportunities included ethnic, online, and niche publications. And while you could tell that Steve Baker (the lecturer) loved what he was doing, I wasn't learning much amidst his distracting anecdotes and funny pictures. It also didn't help that, throughout the entire session, I wanted to turn around and punch a girl for being incredibly obnoxious and rude.
Bright and early on Thursday morning, I arrived at my first session barely awake (I nearly got mowed down by a cab crossing the street). Take It From The Times was about how we could grow as writers through reading The New York Times. Really, the only thing I remember was how delighted I became upon receiving a bunch of materials; a mini notebook, a pen, a fold-out cover page, and a small packet of noteworthy Times articles. That basically kept me occupied all class. At 10am, I checked into my next class, Crossing Cultures. While utterly long and slightly boring, the speaker (Marco Mulcahy) was established internationally, and for good reason. He lectured about the importance of objectivity and discussed how many Communist governments controlled their country's media.
Headless Body in Topless Bar; the sensational name of my next session gave no indication to the 45 minutes of pain I was about to endure. Extremely crowded and noisy, the session was frankly, a mess. The speaker had not an ounce of mirth or happiness to her, stomping about with a seemingly perpetual frown on her face.
Upon returning from lunch (a fabulous Cuban meal on Broadway), I headed to my next destination, Working in Broadcast News. Marcy McGinnis, former CBS News senior vice-president, seriously knew her stuff. I thoroughly enjoyed the session not only because of Marcy's friendly candidness, but also because I discovered something important; I'm clearly not meant for the broadcasting world. Some might have called this session useless to me, but anything that can prompt me to self-discovery is worth the time. The next session (aptly named How to Break into Journalism) also proved to be worthy. Michelle Falkenstein, a freelance journalist, stressed that experience in any paper is important and that, like any other passion, you should start with small steps (such as working for smaller, local papers). I also really liked this class because she lectured specifically on the steps you should take when sending in your clips to potential employers; most of the other speakers used vague, general terms.
Friday morning came much too quickly, and I mournfully battled the bitter cold on my way to Columbia. Because I had woke up late, I wasn't able to catch the 8:45 session, and spent that time instead schmoozing in the ever-pretentious Starbucks and devouring overpriced breakfast sandwiches. 9:45 found me at Not Just Ink on Paper, where a bubbly Sandy Woodcock taught me little. I honestly think I sat there counting down the minutes as she chattered on about how the future of journalism lay in digital media. Like I didn't know that already. Our final session of the convention (tear) was Rising to the Top, in which the entire Editorial Journalism class attended. We all saw examples of award-winning school papers throughout the nation (well, most of us...Pat Ross definitely dozed off at one point (o: ). While this was an awesome chance to see other papers, I left the session slightly depressed at how The Sentinel pales in comparison to these papers.
But hey, it's not like that can't be improved. There are so many little things we can do to drastically increase the quality of our paper, including:
- Engage our audience; give our readers an outlet so they can contribute to the paper (broader variety of news, article/photo submissions?)
- Create an online photo source; open up an online photo gallery (flickr, photobucket, etc.) that would allow PHS students to contribute their community photos – some could potentially be printed?
- Table of contents; need I say more?!
On that looooong bus ride home to good ol' Pembroke, I realized that I would miss New York City. Yes, I was thinking more about the 5th Avenue/Times Square escapades, subway-riding fun, and the hotel dramas, but part of me would be missing the Columbia sessions. I truly learned a lot and overall, traipsing about the campus and attending the lectures proved to be a very worthy experience. But a word to the wise for future Columbia-goers: Don't wear open-toed wedges.

Physics

Ryan Hennigan

The CSPA convention was just like Physics. Yes, the classes were boring and they didn’t say anything that hasn’t already been said, yet they provided the equations for success.
After an enduring, over five hour long bus trip, the group of students arrived on campus to attend the first session of classes at Columbia University. The class, titled “The Sports Section”, hosted by James Bransfield, provided insightful views such as how sports are entertainment and therefore, should have interesting, “featurey”, ledes and stories. Furthermore, Bransfield suggested that every sport should be covered in every issue; an idea that the Pembroke Sentinel implements in its “Sports Shorts” section.
Rather than attending any other sessions that first day, a group of Sentinel reporters attended a critique of the newspaper. Although the expert loved many of the Sentinel’s techniques, she made plenty of suggestions. She noticed the faults in the paper’s capitalized headlines, consistent four column page design, and the lack of a folio line on pictures. She also suggested the addition of a “question-and-answer” type of sports story to add interest.
The nightly festivals began after the classes. The group as a whole took a shopping trip by subway to Canal Street, followed by a diner in Little Italy, and a Mary Poppins Broadway show in Times Square. This awesome experience showed the excitement of everything New York culture has to offer.
After breakfast at the famous Tom’s Restaurant where Seinfield episodes were filmed, the daily classes resumed. To call the session titled “Covering Sports for the Newspaper” with Jennifer Dial adequate would be an overstatement. Although she highlighted the need for good ledes and as much detail as possible in sports stories, this was no different from the lectures every student reporter has received many times in class.
When the endless boredom of this class has ended, it was again time for some nightly fun. The group again travelled to Canal Street from some cheap (and probably illegal) shopping followed by diner at John’s Pizzeria. However, the excitement was only beginning. A Staten Island Ferry ride to catch a picturesque view of the enormous statue of liberty and the beautiful city at night was absolutely thrilling. Afterwards, there was a brief late night visit of Times Square before calling it a night.
The solemn final day began again with a delicious experience at Tom’s Restaurant for breakfast and then off to a “From Boring to Interesting” session with Erin Einhorn. Although she was a very personable and intellectual person, her lesson was a lot about her own experience as a reporter and less about journalistic philosophy. The final session that all journalism students attended was “Rising to the Top: CSPA Crown Overview for Newspapers” with Bruce Watterson. The purpose of this was to see all the best high school newspapers around the country. The most important thing learned from this was the importance of color newspapers and diversity in design to be a top newspaper. The end of this class marked the end of the trip as the group was piled on the bus for home afterwards.
Unsurprisingly, the trip was both entertaining and enlightening. Much was gained in knowledge that can be applied to the Pembroke Sentinel. An immediate change can be made in varying up the number of columns of each page or half-page. This brings diversity in the design of the paper and is usually entertaining. Also, the paper needs to get rid of the capitalized headlines and switch to lower case letters as is accustomed. Furthermore, a “question-and-answers” type of sports story would be a good addition. These are quick, interesting, and to-the-point.

CSPA Convention

Lauren Hanley


“Rise and Shine!” My mom says in a zealous voice, eager to drop me off at the High School for departure. It is four in the morning and my weary eyes will only open half way, but I am very excited to begin my adventure to the New York City Convention. Driving to Columbia is all a blur to me because I did not have my coffee yet and was still drained from waking up uncharacteristically early.
We arrived to Columbia soaking wet from the down falling rain outside, just walking from the bus into the Convention. Since we were extremely late, me and my two friends were shut out of the first class. Due to the embarrassment of having the doors shut on our faces, we vowed to be at least five minutes early for the following class.
I decided to take a session entitled, “I don’t know what to write about! Now you do!” with professor Violet Turner. This was by far the most eye-opening and influential lesson of all the classes. The teacher was very sincere and provided us with the most random ways to get a topic to write about. For example, she said that we use conversations we had with our parents and turn it into a masterpiece. Inspired by her words, I wrote a poem between classes. It was pretty lame but I am hoping to use more of her techniques to improve it.
The next class I attended was Jobs, Jobs, Jobs with Steve Butler. The professor had a remarkable life story, being hard of hearing as an infant and used writing to express his emotions. However, unlike his life, the class was a bore. He basically repeated over and over that writing has countless opportunities but he failed to name any occupations. He struggled to maintain control over the class due to disrespectful and obnoxious girls sitting behind me.
Take it from the Times was a compelling class, which focused on writing creative stories using techniques from the New York Times. I was given free pens, pamphlets, and a notebook to keep track of his advice. This material was very resourceful because the teacher had valid and constructive instruction that was applicable to both our newspaper and writing essays for school.
After class me and my friend Ali, rushed to the other side of the campus, in order to make the 10 o’clock class called “The Zen of writing well”. Unfortunately, we have no sense of direction and ended up running late for class, despite our good intentions. To our disappointment, we were again shut out of class. To lighten our heavy hearts, Ali and I decided to go out for an extravagant lunch.
When I returned from a long lunch break, I attended a seminar about strong women. It was a video that followed independent women who refused to conform to society’s uniform
figure. It advocated women’s rights and praised “tomboys”. The film was very interesting but to be honest I was so tired from the long day that I helplessly feel asleep.
When Friday came, I went to a public relations class, which entailed directions on how to create press packets and how a journalist should deal with executives. This class was enlightening because I am thinking about going into public relations as a career. Karen Thompson, the professor, brought in press packets from world renowned companies like Disney television. It was surreal looking at packets from such prestigious businesses.
Lastly, in the auditorium, I met with fellow journalism students from Pembroke high and other students from all the country. This was a very educating class that provided constructive criticism and presented new ideas for our product. In addition, the advisor commended 2008 CSPA Crown finalists.
Altogether, the CSPA convention was a hit. I loved running around the collage campus and interacting with students from all over the nation. The classes were very resourceful and taught me little things that could help our Pembroke Sentinel. For example, we could add a page to our paper in order to make each page look less wordy. The sentinel was considered a very text-heavy paper. Therefore, we would be able to appeal to a wide audience but still contain a lot of information. Also, it would be a good idea to have a online picture source. Here, Pembroke residents, younger students, and pretty much anyone can upload photos that we can use for the Sentinel. Finally, I would suggest trying to add at least one color to the front page. This would attract more people and create a larger circulation.

Conference Review

Ryan Grindle

While most students were sitting in their second class of the day, 28 Pembroke students began their first set of classes at Columbia University in New York.
Because of traffic on the five hour drive, everyone missed the first classes of the day. By the time we arrived, the second session was already underway so a group of us took this opportunity to explore the main part of the campus. After the second session ended, we made our way to the conference hall for the “Student Swap Shop”, where people could view publications from different high schools all over the country.
That afternoon, five members of the Pembroke Sentinel staff were present to see the newspaper critiqued by an expert from the university. Overall, the critique went very well and there were some suggestions that could greatly improve the quality of the paper.
Over the course of the next few days, there were a few classes that stuck out more than the others. The first was a class on Adobe PhotoShop, a computer arts program that is used often in newspapers. Beforehand, it looked like it would be extremely helpful and interesting. However, during the class, many lost focus and later said that what was taught was basic and widely known. This class was nowhere near as good as a class properly titled “From Boring to Interesting”. Taught by a writer for the New York Daily News, “boring to interesting” focused on making dull, statistic based stories into attention-grabbing stories that more people would want to read.
The final session of the convention offered a chance to see national, award winning publications and how Pembroke measured up to what was considered the best. Seeing these newspapers, along with the critique, presented a few ideas that would make the newspaper even better than it is now.
My first suggestion is to have bigger, better graphics that stick out more than the business card sized ones that are normally seen. Another idea is to vary the way columns are shaped. This could be wrapping text around graphics or having columns that take up more than one leg.
Overall, the convention was very helpful and was still very fun.

“What if your lede sucks?”

Karine Watts

The lede; the most important part of a story in the newspaper. It captures the attention of readers if written the right way. “What if your lede sucks?” was a class I took at the CSPA Convention. The class taught me that by having a boring or cliché lede will drive readers away. If a lede “sucks”, then the reader will feel no reason to continue reading the story. Sentinel writers must create ledes that appeal to the reader’s senses and emotions. To make the lede work, the writer must do find the right person to interview before writing the lede and also do all reporting before writing the actual lede. There is no point of writing a story if the writer is unable to make a good lede that will capture the reader because then the newspaper is not doing its job.
Before writing a controversial story sentinel writers must know their states laws on student’s rights to a free press. I learned this in a class I took called “They Won't Let Me Print This Now What Do I Do? It was an interesting class. If someone writes something that is not found appropriate by administrators, it can be censored. If this should happen, the principle and the editor should already have a relationship that will make it easier to work out the problem. If for whatever reason the principle and editor can not make an agreement, the Student Press Law Center, can be of assistance. These people will work to help out what can be published or not.
Another class that I attended had information that would also help the Pembroke Sentinel. I took a class about photo shop. This class taught those at the convention, how to make photos better and stand out more on the newspaper pages. This class showed us how to airbrush and fix up photos. Photos make a newspaper fun. They separate all the many words and stories. Photos keep a paper from being just words which no one wants to see throughout the whole paper. Pictures also give readers a visual from the topic of a story. In my opinion, newspapers should have at least one colored photo in the paper to make the reader even more entertained.
The classes at the New York convention were not boring, but very interesting. They were presented to us in a fun way. They teachers were not boring and showed students interesting power points and handouts. Being in the classes was more fun than being in a regular classroom. The teachers were also very good at answering questions that students had. I also liked the main room that all students met in. It gave students the opportunity to meet other students from all over the country. Also, many newspapers from all different schools were laid out on tables for students to go through to see what they did or didn’t like about certain papers. It showed me how to improve our paper and what we should keep the same. In my opinion, the actual convention was very interesting, and I would definitely like to go again.
When not in classes, being in the city of New York was extremely fun. One of the days, I ate lunch at Tom’s Diner. This is a famous place where Seinfeld was often filmed. The service was not that good and the food was average, but it was a fun experience. Shopping was also one of the high points of the trip. Many shops were near the hotel and were very and inexpensive but fashionable. The hotel we stayed in was extremely interesting. I had never stayed at a place like it. I enjoyed it but the décor and dark lighting made the hotel quite different. Wednesday, our whole group saw the Broadway musical "Mary Poppins". At first it was exciting and interesting but then it went on and on. It felt as if it never would end and after more than an hour you would think it was over only to find out that it was only intermission.
Also, my feet were soaked during the whole play from being out in the rain shopping on Canal Street for a couple hours before going to the play. Thursday, many of us ate at a Cuban restaurant. It was awful! The food and service was terrible. Also, someone we were eating with found a long piece of hair in their nachos, which was definitely not one of ours and had come from in the kitchen. Thursday night, the group went to dinner at a fancy pizza restaurant. It was good food and it was fun to all be together. After dinner, people separated. I stayed in Times Square, my favorite place in N.Y.C. I got back to the hotel around 12 a.m. The next morning we woke up at seven and went to a few more classes before getting on the bus to return home. I felt that the bus ride both to and from New York was wonderful. The seats were comfortable and there was even enough room for us to have our own row that we could sprawl across and sleep. On this trip I met many new people that I didn’t even know although they do go to Pembroke High School. It was a very fun trip and I benefited from it in ways that will be useful to the Pembroke Sentinel.
My only complaint? I saw a massive rat in the subway and rats are my biggest fear!!

CSPA Review

Patrick Ross

“The girl started talking about how their town mayor was paying for sex shops all around their state, and I laughed and mumbled something under my breath that made the three people in front of me turn around and give me quite a dirty look, so I laughed in their faces as well, it’s not like it will affect anything, I’m never going to see them again.” Wednesday morning was the start of classes. At the time I had really no idea where to go or what to do. So, by instinct, I followed a few other kids from Pembroke and ended up in a class somewhat about Photoshop. There was only about twenty minutes left in the class as we walked in. Instantly I knew I didn’t belong because I was my usual self, making jokes and comments to laugh at. The other kids were actually getting angry at me I think but I don’t care at all. It was boring as all hell, the teacher showed us extremely mediocre work, and the students were a little weird. Luckily it soon ended and we left.
During the next session I was alone and didn’t have any idea what to do so I called Tim up and got lunch at Tom’s Restaurant. It was ridiculously good. The following day I went to an actual class titled Photoshop. Why I went to one like it again I do not know. But anyways, there were many other students in this one and the teacher actually showed us some cool things. She asked us if we ever had certain problems with Photoshop and showed us how to fix them.
On the final day I attended a few different classes. The first one was titled, “Imagine your lede sucks,” and it sounded decent so I attended. The teacher kept my attention by being funny and showing us good ledes and horrible ones. He taught us lots of different ways that we could improve our own ledes; for instance, to not be so direct and straight forward. He said to use an anecdote, which is a quick short story, and to use humor, good vocabulary, and to not say common sense things. Overall the class was actually kind of enjoyable, much better than regular school at least.
The next session, I was in the same room but for a different class. This one was called, “They Won’t Let Me Print This, So Now What Do I Do. The class was all about situations when they don’t allow you to write something for one reason or another. It was cool and interesting because other kids in the class talked about stories they were writing that got halted. Some were really good and weren’t even broken by the local press yet. An extreme plus to the class was that it was filled with a whole row right behind me of about twelve beautiful girls my own age. So that made it way better. Besides the pretty girls, I did actually pay attention to what the teacher was saying. However a few times when people were telling their stories I chuckled a little bit because well, I just thought they were funny. A lot of people were actually getting very agitated with me but it’s not like I’m ever going to have to talk to them. I can’t help it if I find things like their towns mayor paying for sex shops all over the state instead of funding for the fire department, or if I laughed slightly under my breath when people start talking about bringing gays together with regular guys. I’m not trying to be mean but honestly, we all know that’s never going to happen.
After this session a few of us attended a review of the 2008 CSPA Crown Finalists. It was literally one of the most boring things ever. The guy just talked and talked for an hour in a low boring voice that put me to sleep. Plus the room was extremely hot and muggy so I got really tired. After that the classes ended for us, and we packed up and boarded back onto the bus. Overall the trip was fun and I guess educational. In my opinion our paper doesn’t need much to improve. Obviously color is a huge thing that would make it awesome and way better, as well as if we knew some more about in design. But there are a few simple things that we could probably do. For starters we should take a lot more time with pictures and illustrations and things like that. By this I mean that we could do more with them and make them look better by fading them behind or in text. We could fade or sort of connect pictures that are next to each other. Also we could give them more of a glow or some kind of shade around them. All of us could also take much more time on our ledes. Most people think we should just give the straightforward five W’s. But why not use an interesting anecdote for once or something really funny or weird; just something that will draw the reader in more.
The lede is one of the most important parts so we should have fun with it so people can read it and laugh, or become sad or curious. For a final suggestion of improvement is something I noticed when I looked at another schools paper. I am not sure what school it was but they had a way that they did their versions of “Athlete of the Month” that was really cool. They had someone draw a picture of the athlete with a huge head and then instead of writing a whole story on them, which might seem unappealing to people who hate reading, they do sort of a statement and then the opinion of the athlete. For example it says things like name, height, position, team, best memory, favorite show or food, favorite things to do, and stuff like that. However it’s not put into a story, it is in a list. It says like best memory in bold and then their answer next to it, and so on and so forth. I don’t know if we want to change this but it seems way easier and more readable for people who don’t want to read long stories.
Altogether the conference was pretty cool. Seeing other school papers and other kids that were interested in the same thing as I am was nice. Most of the teachers kept my attention and kept me interested. I got an idea of what they do for journalism in college as well and learned a few things I could use. I’ll be honest and say some of the kids were weird and nothing like me, but overall it was a good time, and I would definitely go again next year.

Our day

Celine Chahine

The day was March 19, around 5 am, the newspaper staff was exited to step onto their Coach bus with their money filled pockets and heavily packed bags to reach their destination, New York City. Yet they were quite unaware of the fact that there were still a few students that were left alone with no teacher in the period 7 Editorial class.
I was one of those students, and the things that I experienced that day will be branded into my mind forever. I remember that day very clearly. Our substitute was Mr. Bullock, he was a young man and also the older brother to one of the sophomore students here, Geoff Bullock. Since the teacher didn’t do anything the class was left under the rule of Mary Polleys.
Mary took good control over the few students that were left in the classroom. We brainstormed ideas for the May issue of the Pembroke Sentinel. We did a good job , especially for a few students, we even came up with many story ideas, the athletes of the month, the boy is Geoff Bullock and the girl is Sarah Cavalier. We also came up with our centerspread, which is going to be about spring break.

Mary Polleys

In class on Thursday, we were surprisingly productive. We came up with a good amount of story ideas, the spring break center spread, and began planning the pages. We brought in Katie Sass who helped us with multitudes of ideas, and we decided to do a point counterpoint about the school spending 16,000 dollars on the Steinway piano for the music department. Also, our substitute Mr. Bullock gave us the idea to do a feature on the student’s favorite substitutes.
These efforts in class definitely paid off because when the intrepid travelers returned from NYC, they had decided to expand the number of pages from 12 to 20. I’m still unsure of how the quality of the pages will fare with such an increase in responsibility for individuals. But you never know until you try, right?
The aftershock of spirit week was very minimal, as the week in general was rather dull, and certainly less than spirited.
Other than that one class period, there was nothing much else of consequence going on at school. The days were filled with movies, free periods, and pointless activities, or business as usual for seniors in the third term.
Junior prom tickets went on sale, with the theme “A night in Paris” which is relatively creative to the seniors theme, or lack thereof. The idea for senior prom is to keep it simple and with white table cloths and simple rose centerpieces, the night promises to be simply elegant.

Sam Hooper

Last week, several journalism students traveled to the CSPA Convention at Columbia University in New York City. I did not go on the trip due to my very empty bank account. While the students were away on the trip, students at the high school received a notice about an incident that occurred after Open Mic Night on March 12th. The notice revealed that a 16-year-old threatened a 17-year-old girl and a 15-year-old boy with a toy handgun. At first you may think it was humorous because who would use a toy gun to actually frighten someone? But the two students that were threatened proceeded to call the police because they really believed they were endangered. The incident occurred at ten o’clock in the school parking lot so it must have been hard to identify the toy gun in the dark. I for one would not be able to tell if the gun was fake.
According to the Patriot Ledger, Police chief Mike Ohrenberger said, “He said he was going to blow her brains out…Then he made a statement that wouldn’t it be funny if he shot the other kid, too?”
Why would a student go out of his way to terrify two innocent students and proceed to call the 17-year-old girl and again say he was going to shoot her? Police said that the 16-year-old later told the girl that he was only kidding. You can only take a joke too far and most will agree that this joke was out of line. It is ridiculous that a student would go through that much trouble and later report that he was only kidding.

We stayed home

Nicholas Papadopolous

Whilst most of the Journalism II class was slacking off in New York City, the rest of us were forced to suffer in everyday life. Study was pointless, physics was dumb, English was boring, and math was challenging.
Journalism substitute Mr. Bullock covered in journalism and life went on. In class, we generated ideas for the April issue of the paper, some ideas generated were the Spring Break center-spread, the need of a $55,000 piano, and the reaction of the Yellow Dress. We plan on writing specifically about Spring Break disasters, the pros and cons of working versus vacationing, and a “what are you doing” piece. Chris Holland and I were pressing hard to write a controversial piece about the extreme underground curling federation, however, our requests were denied.
While assigning stories, Chris Holland and I assigned the impact of the yellow dress story to Ryan Grindle. However, when Grindle got back, he refused to write the story. Now, because of Grindle’s lack of cooperation, the yellow dress story went unwritten.
It was the first time Mr. Bullock had ever covered a class that I had been a part of, and I was pleased by his substituting skills. He was cool and laid back, but still didn’t let the class get out of control. Because of his outstanding subbing, Mr. Bullock has found a way onto Chris Holland’s top 5 substitute teacher list.
Around the school, nothing worth noting happened. Rumors were spread, students cheated on tests, and teachers routinely failed students. The morning announcements were read, long block was still an hour too long, and most spring tryouts ended. I happened to make varsity baseball, but many hopes and dreams were crushed by coaches telling them that they weren’t good enough to play.