Hot off the Press: Glennallen Students Create New School Paper
Preslyn Thompson (left) and Wyatt McGinnis (right) hold up a recent edition of the Panther Press. Photo by Anna Somers.
by Anna Somers
If you walk into the Glennallen Middle School or High School and glance at the desk by the main office, you might find yourself holding a brand-new copy of Glennallen’s new student newspaper.
There are approximately eight middle-school and high-school students who are working on the Panther Press. The paper includes sports coverage; interviews with athletes, actors, or other notable Glennallen students; puzzles, riddles, and word searches; as well as highlights of student artwork.
All of the content in the Panther Press is created by students. Preslyn Thompson is an eighth grader who joined the newspaper because she wanted to see more middle-school sports coverage.
Wyatt McGinnis, grade 6, says he always wanted to work on a newspaper and to have practice writing articles. He writes a variety of stories, including student interviews and riddles.
The Panther Press released its first edition in the fall of 2024. The students are overseen by Lydia MacDonald, administrative assistant for the Glennallen High School and Middle School.
MacDonald, known to students as Miss Lydia, said that she likes to make sure the students feel like this is their paper, and that she is simply the one who helps keep them organized. Miss Lydia also does the proofreading and layout for the Panther Press.
As enjoyable as a project like this can be, running a school paper outside of classroom time poses challenges. Because the middle-school and high-school students are on different class schedules, it’s hard to communicate with everybody at once and to get the word out about stories and deadlines.
Students hold occasional meetings at lunch in Miss Lydia’s office, during which time they discuss story ideas and assignments for upcoming editions. These meetings are brief, since the lunch times for middle school and high school students only overlap for a short window.
At one of their recent meetings, the students also discussed the challenges of making sure other students know about the paper so that they aren’t investing so much time into something that few people know about or read.
Because there isn’t a single class devoted to journalism, students have to find time to work on their articles on their own time. This can pose a hardship for students like Wyatt, who volunteers to write multiple types of articles for each edition but says it can be hard to figure out when to find the time to get it all done.
In spite of these challenges, the Panther Press persists and is an excellent example of students taking initiative to create something that wouldn’t otherwise exist.