PAW CELEBRATES 10 YEARS; THE PAW NEWSPAPER AT L.J. SCHULTZ MIDDLE SCHOOL CELEBRATES ITS 10TH ANNIVERSARY

Christina VanNostrand, left, and Sarah Rutherford looked at a file copy of the Paw to get some ideas for the final issue of the school year.

Jennifer Taylor, left, and Martha Stoecker checked the back page of one of the newspapers.

Like other newspapers, The Paw editorialized last fall against Hancock II, the tax-limitation amendment.

But it didn't ask its readers to vote against it; it asked the seventh-grade readers to encourage their parents to do so.

The Paw is a newspaper at L.J. Schultz Middle School. It is published five times a year with the help of the Southeast Missourian.

Like other papers, it has columns, editorials, news, features and sports.

Over the years, the school newspaper has dealt with everything from braces to Rush Limbaugh. About 500 copies are printed of each edition, with the bulk of them circulated among students and staff at the school.

Some of the copies are exchanged with other school newspapers across the country.

Since its founding a decade ago, The Paw has won numerous state and national awards, and has been featured in a textbook on junior-high journalism.

The newspaper's name reflects the school district's Tiger mascot. The high-school paper is The Tiger and the junior-high paper The Cub.

Schultz continues to have one of the few middle-school papers in Missouri. The Paw often competes in the junior-high division.

Almost 300 students have been involved with the newspaper since the first edition rolled off the presses in November 1985.

What started as an after-school activity has become an English class project and a source of school pride.

This year there are 29 students on The Paw staff. There are no editorial positions. The entire staff writes and edits for the newspaper. Students also take the photographs that appear in the paper.

They know all about headlines and inverted pyramid leads.

The staff meets each school morning to work on the paper.

"It is a class that is very much in demand," says English teacher and Paw adviser Pat Heckert. "They have a lot of enthusiasm and they love to see the paper come out."

This year the newspaper has rated parents and written about T-shirts that carry messages to live by. It has featured an autistic student's trip to the Garfield comic-strip studios in Indiana. It has dealt with Valentine's Day, which Paw staffer Janet Smith described as "that gushy time of year."

The Paw even asked four seventh-graders if they thought O.J. Simpson was innocent or guilty. The verdict: guilty by a 3-1 margin.

Paw staffer Katie Rose wrote a column about Christmas cheeselogs in the December issue. Her written humor resembles that of her favorite columnist, Dave Barry.

Syndicated columnist Barry rates high with these seventh-graders.

"I like to write columns," she says. "If it wasn't for the class, I would probably flunk English."

Fellow student Gabe Kinder likes taking sports photos and doing on-the-street interviews.

The students have to work together to turn out a newspaper. "You have to have teamwork or you don't get it done," says Kinder.

Many of The Paw staffers say the worst thing about putting out a newspaper is meeting the deadlines. Danielle Carter, however, thinks there is something worse than that: "When you can't think of anything to write."

Beth Bishop gets plenty of satisfaction in putting out a newspaper. "I was proudest of the news story I did on Sarah Kim, a Korean girl, because I was able to get through to her even with the language barrier."

So what's the best thing about working on The Paw?

"You learn a lot of things, and you find information about things before anyone else does," says Courtney Bradley.

David Wyatt says, "You get your name in print."

Rashida Wilson says, "You get to do writing, which is fun, and hardly have homework or tests."