Effort would make dad proud

I have often wondered what my dad would have thought when in July 2005, Mark Kelsey, former Frontiersman managing editor, called me to discuss his vision of a Schools Page. The weekly feature would include school news, student-written articles and a teacher-generated column. Would I be interested in helping?

I put Kelsey on hold and remembered a day home from college when I announced I was going to be a journalist. My dad advised against it.

“You don’t write very well,” he said. “And, you aren’t much for connecting the dots.”

I figured he knew best, so I returned to my little ski town in Colorado to pick up a degree in education.

Dad was born a newspaperman. Our lives tangled with Underwood typewriters, note page tablets and deadlines. Mom even scheduled our births for Wednesdays because the family-owned Iowa Sentinel went to press on Tuesdays. I learned to read linotype upside down and backward as giant rolls of newsprint clanked across the inked beds of lead print.

Dad believed a newspaper’s job of reporting the news, without creating the news, and interpreting the news without bias, to be almost a patriotic duty. His wasn’t a passion devoted to the freedom of press as much as it was a passion to be informed. Local schools were equally dear to my dad. He argued that schools should be small, neighborhood affairs. He told me that public schools were as much our country’s strength as the military.

“We are only as strong as we are well-read,” he said. “If public school isn’t good enough for you, it isn’t good enough for anyone. And then you’re doomed from that point on.”

Dad always puttered around with gardens. He didn’t grow much, mostly weeds, but he grew cancer well. It had been five years earlier that we buried him on a hill near an Iowa cornfield. I clicked back into my phone call and, cautiously, agreed to work with Kelsey. Even if I couldn’t write, I remembered Dad’s belief in both local schools and local news.

Six years and three managing editors later, the Schools Page remains better than ever. This year a record number of 12 students representing seven schools, five teachers and one principal contribute on a rotating schedule for the weekly page. For the first time, the Schools Page includes an independent study credit students can earn while writing for the Frontiersman. My role in the Schools Page and independent study course is to coordinate the student reporters and Chalk Talk contributors. It isn’t much of a job really: lots of e-mails, fewer meetings and a tempered pride in each production.

For me, the greatest contribution of the Schools Page is showing the community that our public schools are not to be feared. They are producing the brightest and most able of young adults. These students are well-read individuals able to think and speak for themselves. They recognize what is news, and interpret it well. On top of it all, these youngsters make deadline week after week.

My dad — through the grime of too many newspapers, too much ink, too much smoke and not enough coffee — connected ideas like I never could. I am certain he would connect Egypt’s Jan. 28 revolution to the Schools Page. He would explain in simple words that our local newspaper is one reason our town square isn’t filled with the angry protestors seen across the Middle East today. He knew our way of life depends on a balance between a small town’s right to know and a literate citizenry.

Without a doubt, dad would still not approve of my clumsy writing; however, he would be approving of the Frontiersman’s commitment to the Schools Page. He would be most pleased that our kids write and think well for themselves, and he would be pleased that our community supports it.

School Page contributors: Burchell High School, Ashlee Twiford; Career and Technical High School, Sophie Harris; Colony High School, Kayla Anderson, Casey Branch, Eva Colberg; Glacier View High School, Jenny Lee, Chris Martin; Houston High School, Kylie Boepple, Katie Jensen; Palmer High School, Tim Rockey, Darby Salmon; and Wasilla High School, Rachel Clark.

Chalk Talk contributors: Vanessa Powell, Jeffrey Blackburn, Steve Cook, Mark Okeson, Paul Morley.

Independent Study instructor: Susan Brunner.

Students interested in writing for the Frontiersman this summer or next year should contact Emily Forstner at emily.forstner@matsuk12.us.

Emily Forstner is a seventh-grade teacher at Wasilla Middle School.