Hannah Reed is NWIndianaLife.com's #1StudentNWI representative at Lake Central High School. This month, Hannah wrote a detailed feature on Publications, the school's yearbook and news magazine club.
At Lake Central, there are many clubs and activities that a student can participate in. Among these is Publications. In Publications, a group of 56 students and two advisers work together to compose a yearbook and a news magazine, all while simultaneously turning in online stories for the website every few weeks.
“Balancing Publications with all of my other school work is difficult, but it is worth it because journalism is one of my passions," said Joey Pavell, a junior team leader for the organization. "I’m also in Class Cabinet, Student Council, Dollars for Scholars, Book Club and N-Teens. I’m also in three AP classes and an honors class, and I work two days a week. There are nights when I stay up past three in the morning."
Publications, often referred to as Pub, contains a variety of different personalities. In order to be a part of the staff, one must first complete a class on Introduction to Journalism or Photography. After the class has been completed, the students can fill out an application in order to be considered for a spot on staff.
“I took the Photography class my sophomore year the first semester, and our adviser, Sarah Verpooten, who taught Photography, asked me if I would be interested in joining for the second semester of my sophomore year. I filled out the application and before I knew it my stories and photos were on the website, and I was working on pages in the yearbook and news magazine,” said senior Jillian Wilschke, Newsmag Editor-in-Chief.
After the application process is completed, the student can work their way up to a Team Leader or Editor Position. Team Leaders are assigned a team of 4-6 regular staff members. Their job is to guide the staff and help them out with anything they need throughout the school year.
“I like being a Team Leader because I remember my first year here in Pub, and I remember needing help with a lot of stuff and feeling like an annoyance, so I am motivated to guide my staff members," said junior team leader Hannah Bryner. "It is self-empowering knowing that I’m helping new staff members, because once I’m gone they’re going to be in charge of our publications."
There are seven different editor positions that the students can apply for after they’ve completed their first year on staff. The different positions include: Media Chief, Yearbook Editor-in-Chief, Yearbook Design Editor, Newsmag Editor-in-Chief, Newsmag Design Editor, Copy Editor, Business Manager, Photo Editor, Online Editor-in-Chief and Social Media Director.
“I’ve been the Media Chief for the past two years, so I’m basically the mom of all the editors. I’m in charge of checking deadlines, I do the whole index in the back of the yearbook, and I also set up the coverage calendar. Being in Publications has helped me with my social skills and helped me learn how to talk to people. It’s definitely a challenge working with roughly 60 people, but I think it makes our staff unique,” senior Hannah Sonner said.
With a staff so large, it only makes sense to have two advisers instead of one. Sarah Verpooten has been teaching at Lake Central for 13 years and Carrie Wadycki for 16. The duo have been running the Publications class together for four years.
“It’s fun [being an adviser], I love it. It makes me want to come to work every day. I love the energy in this class because it’s so different from all the other classes that I teach, because it’s such an application based class. Before, people were just photographers, or just writers, and we figured that’s not good for when you go to college and when you get into the real world because that’s not where journalism is going. If you have a job and you’re a reporter you’re not only expected to write a story you’re expected to get sound clips and captions too,” Wadycki said.
The class not only teaches students how to become journalists, it gives them real world experience. Everything that is learned in Publications can benefit a student whether they’re deciding to go to college for Journalism or not. The class teaches staffers how to complete work by deadlines, become effective leaders and how to use social skills in a professional setting.
“It’s my first time having a leadership position, so I feel like it has taught me how to be more confident when I’m interacting with strangers and people in general. I also feel like I’ve learned a lot of organizational skills from Publications because we do have specific deadlines and you have to stay organized to make those deadlines,” senior and team leader Sara Lisac said.