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superintendency have told me these
decisions are left up to individual principals. But regardless of the source
of the decisions, the elimination of an
established journalism program is a
huge loss for a school. And the sense
of loss will be especially acute at East
High, where The Kernal has been an
integral part of the East High community for all of its 75 years.
Asked to advise
I was about to start my third year of
teaching when my English Department chair asked if I would like to take
on the journalism class and advise
the school paper. At that stage in
my career, I wanted to do whatever
I could to make sure I was the last
person laid off if things got tough, so
I said yes. That began the steepest
learning curve of my life.
Suddenly, I was responsible to
teach students how to conduct interviews, write news, features, columns
and editorials, take and process
excellent photographs, design pages
using desktop publishing software,
sell advertising, organize their work
flow, work together in teams and lead
each other, and do all of this with
professional journalistic ethics as a
foundation. And, of course, all of this
was as new to me as it was to my
students.
Oh yeah, and we also had to publish nine papers during the school
year. I’ll never forget seeing the sun
come up through the computer lab
windows after two sophomore editors
and I worked all night to get that first
issue out on time.
The Kernal’s first edition, printed on seven mimeographed 8-1/2 by 11 pages, came out Sept. 30, 1938.
Volume 1, Number 1 features two letters from the
school’s first principal, K.W. Rich, on the front page,
one to the public and the other to students, titled
“To You Pioneers.” Other articles in that first issue
introduce members of the school staff, acquaint students with various clubs that were just getting off the
ground, and enlist student help in making the many
decisions that faced the fledgling campus. Traditions
needed to be established, including the music and
lyrics for a school song and the name of the mascot.
“Blades” got the most votes, in a contest that also
included Plainsmen, Hornets, Hilltoppers, Rangers and
Musketeers.
The Kernal adopted its own name in the first few
weeks of school, but no one has been able to explain
why it is spelled the way it is. “Kern” is most likely a
reference to Kern County, of which Bakersfield is the
county seat. But why the paper is not called The Kernel, which would connect with the kernel of truth idea,
is a mystery.
Over the years, the format, size and frequency
of the paper went
through many changes. From its mimeographed beginnings,
The Kernal went to
newsprint during
its first year, first as
a tab and then to a
four-page broadsheet
Alumni respond
After getting the sad
news about the demise of
the journalism class during the first few weeks of
this summer, I posted a
brief tribute to The Kernal
and its generations of
staffers on my Facebook
page. The response was
overwhelming.
Sarah wrote that
working on The Kernal as
a journalist and section
editor was the best decision she made in high school. Former
editor in chief Karen, who has worked
for a Boston-based magazine, said
she owes her career to The Kernal.
And Caitlin, yet another former EIC,
during the mid 1940s. It returned to the tabloid format
in the mid 80s.
For many years, the staff got the paper out every
Friday, but by the mid 70s it was down to once a month
or less. Pages ranged as high as 28 during years when
the staffs were especially large or prolific, but 12-to16-page tabs were most common.
The staff box in that first Kernal shows nine student
staff members, four of whom are designated as typists. By the second edition, which came out a week
later, that staff was up to 17, nine reporters and eight
typists.
Over the paper’s first 50 years, the size of the student journalism staffs remained fairly constant, ranging from eight to about 20 most years. Beginning in the
early 1990s, staff sizes went up into the 20s and 30s,
with a high of 36. In its final two years, The Kernal was
produced by staffs of 14 and 17. Nineteen had signed
up for this year.
During most of its life, the East High journalism program was comprised of just one class called beginning
journalism. Students who chose to take the class for a
second, third, and even fourth year were the lifeblood
of the paper, providing editorial leadership and helping
to train the newcomers.
In the 2000s, The Kernal was a finalist for an NSPA
Pacemaker award
three times and
won a Pacemaker
in 2006, the year
its controversial
focus section on
homosexual students was finally
published.
said journalism played a huge role
in directing the course of her college
and professional careers. And she
made this former adviser tear up a bit
when she said how much she appre-
ciates “the absolute
confidence that Mr.
Hamm instilled in his
students that we had
a voice worth listening to.”
Looking back, I realize that was the most
rewarding part of the
job: empowering students to take control of
their paper and use it
to do good. Yes, I hovered over them like the
worst of mother hens
at times, but it was never my paper. It
was theirs.
I went back to school once during this summer vacation and spent
a couple of nostalgic hours leaf-
ing through bound volumes of old
Kernals in the archive room above
the library. Some of the yellowed
newsprint is torn, and on a few pages
stories have been cut out with scissors. But for the most part, the record
of student journalism is intact. Each
paper spea