FREEDOM, EXCITEMENT OF SQUAWLER WORK BALANCED BY RESPONSIBILITIES

Maggie Martin interviews Delta High School student Regina Hafner for her feature on culinary arts students. Jackson USA Signal/Mark Evans

Jamie Wachter edits copy at the Southeast Missourian office. Jackson USA Signal/Mark Evans

Heather Farmer, Maggie Martin, Advisor Debbie Otto and (obscured) Cory McElrath layout pages at the Southeast Missourian office. Jackson USA Signal/Mark Evans

Megan Kuntze, Squawler business manger, makes a sale. Jackson USA Signal/Mark Evans

About once a month a dozen Jackson High School students in bright tie-died shirts slip out of seventh hour early and begin selling a product to fellow students.

The product is The Squawler, the official JHS student newspaper since the Depression. Fellow students, as well as faculty and staff are quick to fork over a quarter for the 12- to 16-page tabloid.

Those students see Squawler members roaming the halls seventh hour, with probably envy. What most readers are not so quick to grasp, though, is the scope of behind-the-scenes work that makes the student publication possible.

"The kids learn how to write, do interviews and complete the layout," said Debbie Otto, Squawler advisor since 1989. "They also take most of their own photos and spend an incredible amount of time down here (at the Southeast Missourian office) and an incredible amount of time working on the paper itself."

"We stay down here until 11 o'clock or so, then have to go home and do homework," said Maggie Martin, one of the Squawler's four co-editors, late on a Friday night. "It's a challenge."

"They have to come to the Missourian and type three or four nights a week," Otto said. "It takes dedicated kids to give up their Friday nights. Most people reading it don't realize the students spend that kind of time. Most parents don't even realize it until their child is on the staff."

Seeing staff members getting to leave class may make the positions seem like a vacation to those on the outside. While staff members don't deny that this a welcome fringe benefit, the school time spent on the paper is just the tip of the iceberg.

"I like to interview people. I enjoy walking around school, doing interviews and taking pictures while everybody else has to stay in class," Martin admitted. "I like coming down to the Southeast Missourian, too. Nobody else gets to do that."

Not that there would be a long waiting line for the latter. The late nights cooped up in the Missourian composition department would not likely be seen as particularly exhilarating by the average JHS student.

Many nights during the two weeks prior to publication, several staff members are busy at the Missourian office several hours per night -- often till 11 p.m. or later.

"When we come down here to work, we're usually here pretty late," said Co-Editor Jamie Wachter. "It's hard to keep up with your homework for other classes. We enjoy it, though."

The staff begins work on the coming issue as soon as the most recent issue is printed and distributed. The staff puts its collective head together and -- with Otto -- come up with story ideas. The editors them make story assignments.

"The day we deliver it, she asks us to come up with 10-to-12 ideas," said reporter Heather Farmer. "After that the editors put their heads together and figure out what the next issue will be."

"After we come out with it, the editors assign stories and the writers have a week or so to write," Wachter said. "Then we come down here and set things and lay out the last week or two."

The reporters and editors conduct their own interviews and take their own photographs before returning to the publications classroom and the Missourian office to put things together.

"During seventh hour we have a lot of freedom to do what we need to do," Wachter said. "Some days we don't have to do a whole lot; others we have to really work."

With the newspaper positions come both responsibility and privilege. Otto takes the selection of staff members and editors seriously. Students must apply for positions and enter one of the three classes, Journalism I, II or III. The class is mixed; first-year Journalism I students are in with second and (sometimes) third-year students.

"It's unusual for sophomores to make it," Otto noted. Current co-editors Martin and Cory McElrath will be in their third years next year. Cory, Maggie will be in third years next year. Wachter and Christin Nothdurft, the other editors, are in their second year on the staff.

"Editors are named based on knowledge, work habits, enthusiasm and teacher recommendation," Otto said. Otto has seen some of her earlier students come back to teach, like Kayle Mabuce at the junior high.

The Squawler has won a number of awards from the Missouri School Press Association and the Southern Illinois School Press Association.

The paper is funded by advertising. Business Manager Megan Kuntze is responsible for contacting area businesses and selling ads.

"We're not funded by the school," Martin explained. "We have to raise all our own funds by ad sales."

At the beginning of the year you have to contact every single business to see if they're going to want to have an ad," Kuntze said. "The hardest issue is the first one. You have to contact all the businesses. After that some will advertise every week and some every other.

"If there's not enough money, I start flipping through the Yellow Pages, calling local businesses."

The ad calls are not particularly hard-sell visits. Most businesses are willing to help the paper.

"Most people in Jackson like to support the school," Kuntze said. "Even some form Cape will do it. It just depends on time of year. With the Silver Arrow dance coming up, places that sell dress and stuff like to advertise."

At the end of the month Kuntze does the tallying, then Faxes it to the Missourian.

"They take care of it and bill the businesses," she said. "We don't have anything to do with the money."

Reasons for applying for the Squawler staff vary, but this year's members recommend it.

"I like the class. It's a different look at writing," Farmer said. "It's not like English (class) essay-writing. It's totally new -- really different.

"I just liked that it was a new experience; it wasn't same-old same-old.' It was a type of writing I hadn't used before."

Farmer wants to be an English teacher. "I don't' know if I'll use my journalism skills in the future," she said, "but it might come in handy."

"I liked sports and I thought getting into journalism would let me be around sports in my career," said Wachter, who has applied to Southeast and Missouri. "If someone is interested in writing and willing to work hard, I'd recommend it to anybody. We enjoy it."

"I've always enjoyed writing," Martin said. "I was editor of our little ninth grade school paper -- although it wasn't anything much. My brother (Ben) was on the staff two years and thought it would be cool if I were on it with him."

Kuntze echoed Martin. Her brother Jeremy had been on the staff and had urged her to follow his footsteps.

"I had heard from previous students that it's a lot of fun. It's a good way to get your ideas and opinions across to others," McElrath said. "I like to write. This is a good way to give me a chance to do it.

"Joining the Squawler has been a positive experience," Martin said. "You have to have enough free time to fit in all the time at the Southeast Missourian."

"If they enjoy writing and expressing their opinions and feelings, I would definitely recommend it," McElrath added. "They've got to be willing to work at it. There's a lot of work done outside of class. You can't just show up for class. I have recommended it to a lot of friends."

Everyone writes and many have additional duties on the Squawler staff. "Everybody writes. Some do layouts, some ad sales," Martin said. "The editors do it all."

"Interviews take up a lot of my time," Farmer said. "I worked a lot on the last issue. I got a lot of compliments on it. It was great. I had a lot to do with it. I had been here nearly every night. When people compliment us on it, it feel pretty good. I know I'm not the only one who thinks it's good."

"Some weeks coming up with a column top is a challenge," McElrath said. "Laying out the paper can be, too. Some pages have too much stuff to fit, some not enough. You have no idea how you're going to do it. Sometimes you put stuff on a page and it looks stupid.

"Some months story ideas are popping out left and right. Others you can't come up with any at all."

"Making sure everything is journalistically correct" is Martin's biggest challenge.

"There are a lot of little things you really have to be careful about," she said. "Everybody thinks I'm a perfectionist and have to have everything perfect. It takes me a while to check the pages. Last time I wanted a different font and made everybody wait half an hour to get the font I wanted."

The Dec. 4 issue -- the fourth of the school year -- was 16 pages and included a feature on culinary art classes at the Vo-Tech school by Martin and Matt Sissom, information on the Jan. 8 Silver Arrow dance and features on the holidays. A full-page photo of harpist Sophie Gathman and soloist Andrea Penland from Ye Olde Madrigal (by Martin) filled the cover.

Stories include a reflection on the century by Mike Goodwin; finals stress by Katie Fink; senior class leaders by Michelle Brooks; speech and debate results by Ashley Wischmann; choir and Drama Club stories by Tim Nicolai; Santa and children's reactions by McElrath and Wischmann; another Santa story by Sissom; aviation technology classes, by Wischmann; ROTC, by Wischmann; athlete of the month, by Farmer; twirlers by McElrath; boys basketball by Wachter; volleyball by Fink; Cyle Huck's wrestling and girls basketball, by Goodwin; and a wrestling report by Wischmann.

Regular columns include Sissom's At the Movies; Made in America by McElrath; The Quaint Element by Sissom; Wachter's From the Cheap Seats; and Goodwin's Out of the Woods. Big Gus's Big Ol' Advice Column and the "On the Spot" student opinion/photo survey are also regular back-page features. A staff editorial is also featured on the opinion page.

"When the issue finally comes out, It's a relief because we spend so much time down here," Martin said.

The relief is short-lived, though. After donning their tie-died Squawler shirts, to peddle the monthly product, the cycle begins again.