Future Journalism Stars Born at Ike

continues to pump out some of the state’s future top-notch journalists, writers and publishers with its award-winning publications program.

The school’s newspaper, The Eagle Eye, which was started just a few years ago by newspaper-yearbook teacher Erica Kincannon, was honored with a 2010-11 gold medal status by the Columbia Scholastic Press Association (CSPA).

The school’s yearbook, Esprit de Corps, earned silver medal status by the CSPA and was named one of two Michigan student publications to be in the Crown Awards program.

The CSPA program is one of the nation's premier competitions and involves a professional critique of how publications meet a set of national standards that represent the best practices in media.  The panel judges student publications based on content, design, photography, writing and copyediting.

“I am proud of it (the yearbook) because most people think of yearbook as a blow-off class, but its cool to be on a staff that can do something like this,” said senior Maria Harper.

Harper was a sports editor for the award-winning 2010 yearbook, and has since become the editor-in-chief.

Harper didn’t know the yearbook had won the prestigious award when she signed on to become the editor-in-chief. She agreed to work through the summer to get the book done because the awards take about six months to be judged and processed.

The other student editors for the 2010 yearbook were Ashley Allison and Caitlin Juszczyk, who have since graduated.

Harper said she is still in shock over last year’s yearbook win because only a staff of 14 worked on the book. This year, Harper manages a staff of 32.

Harper said she thinks the secret to the publications' success is the students’ edginess and desire to stay ahead of the trends. That’s why the class chose a neon green hardcover over the traditional black.

An award-winning publication, some management skills under her belt and a fearless approach to journalism has earned Harper a spot at the prestigious Missouri School of Journalism.

But she said she credits her teacher for pushing the class to excel, taking the students to conferences on how to make great books and pushing them to think outside the box.

“If you look at the yearbooks before she came and now, it used to be all captions, but now it’s stuff you would want to read 30 years from now,” said Harper.

When I visited the school, Kincannon was standing on a chair brainstorming and assigning ideas with the newspaper class because the newspaper's editor-in-chief, Brittany Schoel, was out. Kincannon said the publications are truly run by the students.

“Normally, the editor-in-chief runs everything, but were on a deadline,” said Kincannon.

Kincannon said the editors make all the final calls. When students have questions, she refers them to Harper and Schoel.

The monthly newspaper was started only a few years after Kincannon, a former Stevenson Yearbook and English teacher, came to Ike six years ago.

Within a few years, Kincannon built the program up from one yearbook class to include a yearbook class, a newspaper and an introduction to journalism class.

Kincannon said although she also teaches English at Ike because that is the foundation for any solid journalist, her passion lies in the publications program.

“A lot of people say, 'why don’t you just teach English,' but it would be like not breathing if I wasn’t involved in the publication program.  I could not imagine not teaching yearbook,” she said.

Kincannon said the next thing she hopes to do with the program is to increase the newspaper’s frequency of publication and bring it online.