The rumors are true Truckee High, The Truckee Times is finally here! The Truckee Times is our very own school newspaper. It will cover everything from sports to opinions to pop culture as well as informing you on all the latest.

In 1993 a couple of students were rummaging through the yearbook classroom when they found an old issue of the school newspaper. This was The High Times, a school newspaper published in the 70s and 80s. Students were immediately hooked and wanted to start it up again. Mr. Mooney, a retired English teacher who is currently running for a seat on the school board, began to work on it. He encouraged the students to change the name and The Wolverine was born.

The Wolverine had a slow start. For the first two years of its existence the newspaper involved a grueling process where everything that went on the newspaper like stories, titles, and pictures, had to be printed to the exact size it needed to be and then pasted onto a piece of paper. This went on for two years until the newspaper raised enough money to buy software and create the newspaper digitally.

The students published enough copies of The Wolverine for the entire student body. The paper had a lot of support from the principal and was given a separate class. Mr. Mooney states that “It was always pretty cool to see students reading a newspaper in the hallways when it was distributed.”

The newspaper became a major part of school life. Although there was class time to complete articles, many students found themselves having to stay until eleven at night to meet deadlines. Additionally, the newspaper won multiple national awards at the annual Journalism Education Association conferences and some of the students went on to become journalists themselves.

After around 11 years of The Wolverine Mr. Mooney decided that it was time for him to move onto something else. There was a staff member planning to take over, but sadly they moved away over the summer. For many years after this Truckee High was left without a journalism program, until this year.

Mr. Close, an English teacher and former journalist, has wanted to start a school newspaper for a while now. The inspiration behind starting the school newspaper originated from his old school in Oregon where he watched a colleague build a journalism program. The memory of this stayed with him as he moved to Truckee High, but didn’t resurface until last year.

Mr. Close states that “student voices are really important and the newspaper is a great way to elevate that.”

In the school year of 21/22 Mr. Close noticed some interest in a journalism program and hence the process began. He wrote a course proposal for a journalism class and presented it to the school board. The school board voted to approve it and the journalism program finally gained the momentum it needed.

Once the school year began it was obvious that a lot of the students in the class were interested in starting a school newspaper. Roles were assigned and the newspaper began to take shape. Lola Hadley, one of the three managing editors, says that “I’m excited for the newspaper to get up and running because it has been historically groundbreaking.” 

Today the newspaper has multiple positions that help divide up the workload. It has managing editors, an editorial board, advertising editors, copy editors, section editors, photographers, and graphic designers. These roles will ensure that we have a broad coverage of topics.

The goal is to make sure that no topic, sport, or person is left behind. The newspaper plans on achieving this by giving each and every sport equal coverage as well as digging for interesting and new stories. Additionally, the newspaper hopes to cover students that don’t always get covered to incorporate new perspectives into the paper. 

The newspaper staff is excited to kick off the 2nd quarter with The Truckee Times. Let’s get to it!