Image provided by: West Linn High School; West Linn, OR
About The amplifier. (West Linn, Oregon) 1921-current | View Entire Issue (Jan. 1, 2010)
Illicit photos on Facebook could damage student reputations; affect futures. Look inside for the Cub Edition! Journalism II students produce their own newspaper. Boys' Basketball succeeds in preseason; looks to start League strong. — page 3 — page 7 — page 11 Published Since 1921 Officiai Student Publication of West Linn High School January 2010 - Volume 98. Issue 4 Yearbook staff wins NSPA All American award L exi W elp & M ary W ood _______ The Green and Gold Yearbook staff earned a prestigious All American award from the National Scholastic Press Association, one of the highest honors in the country for a school publication. They submitted the 2009 yearbook for judging in November, and received a score of 4,440 points out of 4,700, as well as four marks of distinction. "It's quite an honor because they have an extensive grading section that judges refer to," Glenn Krake, Yearbook adviser, said. Yearbooks submitted for this competition are evaluated on a very exhaustive scale, including areas like coverage and photography. Those who win the award are then published in a book that comes out at the end of the year. The staff was praised for having a "surprising" amount of photographs, but was also given constructive criticism to help them improve the future volumes of the yearbook. "In some ways, it's a tool," Krake said. One piece of advice they were given was to include more male students on the staff to provide more coverage, and they're encouraging more people to become involved. While they are glad to be in the competition to compare their work to that of other yearbook staffs, they're striving to make the yearbook outstanding in competition, but also something students will enjoy. "It is really great knowing that all our hard work and determination paid off; and it drives us to make the next book as great as the last," Carly Feke, co-Photo Editor, said. Even though they won this award, the competition isn't completely over for them. All American Award-winners are invited to a special ceremony in April where the NSPA will announce the finalists for a special Pacemaker award, which is only given to 25-30 school yearbooks annually in the United States. "I think we found a good balance of a book that people enjoy reading and still does well in com petitions," Krake said. Krake hopes this award will help people recognize the yearbook staff more. "Sometimes students don't appreciate the hard work that goes into producing a book," Krake said. The staff often comes in to work outside of class time and dedicates countless hours to creating a quality yearbook. "There would be assignments we would have to finish that would take two weeks," Natalie Snyder, co-Editor-in-chief, said. "We would dedicate our time before school, after school, and on the weekends." This year, the staff plans on meeting a March deadline instead of producing the usual fall yearbook. The books should be out by the end of the school year, and a supplement that can be taped into the book covering spring events will be available in the fall. Photo by Carrie Guy The Green and Gold yearbook staff won a prestigious All American award from the National Scholastic Press Association. They scored 4,440 points out of 4,700 and earned four marks of distinction. WLHS earns national recognition for excellence—again C hrisann K im For the second year in a row, WLHS earned a Silver award from "U.S. News and World Report" placing us in the top 561 high schools in the nation. Overall, over 21,000 high schools were evaluated for "America's Best High Schools" honors. "I am thrilled for our students, teachers and our community. This is an outstanding recognition for others outside of our community to know that we are an outstanding school. The award is about the hard work our teachers and students put in on a daily basis," Lou Bailey, principal, said. Only nine other high schools in Oregon earned the Silver award. Awards were based on performance expectations, performance of less-advantaged students, and college preparation. "This award validates the hard work our teachers dedicate themselves to do for and with our students," Bailey said, "We have won the Silver award now two years in a row, which indicates great consistency within our school's academic program. Siifjgy In a ra __________________ continued on page 2 New server creates initial headaches, but expected to be beneficial G unnar W olfe ________________ Despite recent technical difficulties with the computers, the new server upgrade will be beneficial in the long run according to Curtis Nelson, West Linn- Wilsonville School District Director of Information Services. "The server is faster, higher capacity, centrally located in an 'always on' environment. As it settles into place, this will make the entire end-user experience better," Nelson said. Over the past month, the network has, at times, malfunctioned or been very slow. This is due to a change in servers over winter break. The server is where all files are kept, and it is not an easy task to transfer such a large amount of files. There have been some problems with the changeover, but the change in servers had to be made, as there were only four gigabytes of space left in the old server. The old server Photo by Libby Kara Over winter break, the district switched over to a new central server housed at school district headquarters. Each section of the server has a greater capacity than the old server at WLHS which had less than four gigabytes of space left prior to the transfer. was out of space and out of Amanda Rucker, junior, said. warranty. "It's hard to get anything The new server is used done." for the entire district, rather There have been problems „ with students and staff not than each school having an being able to access files, individual server. This will drives appearing in different make things easier, according places for different users, and to Nelson, as all the files are at one point, students having now located in the same place. access to all other students' Although in the long-run it will be an improvement, there files. are still bugs that need to be The district technology staff worked out as the computers has been working countless have yet to function 100% hours to make this transition properly. This has caused as smooth as possible. frustration and headaches for "With technology, there many students and teachers. will always be problems and It has been even more bugs that need to be worked problematic because the school out," Angie Hammond, WLHS relies so heavily on computers. Technology Department Chair, said. "The entire staff "Sometimes you have days worked through the summer where you really need to and winter break to get this quickly finish work and you technology to work. It wasn't have to try computer after easy." computer to see if it works,"
