Installment+9

Chapter 9

South of Denver

Have I mentioned that we are young? And that hardly anyone on the staff reads a daily newspaper with any regularity? And that our work day last Saturday was almost entirely dependent on whether parents could drop off or pick up at school at a particular time?

Issue one, volume one has not been smooth.

The defining moment was Saturday, about 3:30 p.m.

Louisa, who had run at state cross country that morning, and who had hustled back to work on her profiles page, looked up from her computer and asked, "Where is my page?"

I was working with Adrienne in another corner of the room, talking her through how to place text on her page, but that question caught my attention. It turned out, after several frantic minutes of searching and clicking and silently cursing, that Louisa's entire page 6 folder had disappeared. The page 7 folder was gone as well. Since we store everything by folder - text, sidebars, photos - this was clearly not good. The crushing reality is that someone on the staff, probably not more than two hours earlier, had accidentally deleted those folders. They had been there on Friday.

We know so little that the offending staff member doesn't even know he or she did it, or how it happened.

There's nothing really to be done in these cases, beyond re-gathering the stories and photos, and rebuilding the basic page templates (oh, yes, and trying to device some sort of backup system within the system for the future). Louisa began to do that right away, phoning several reporters and asking them to e-mail their stories again, and plotting how to reshoot several photos on Monday. To her credit, Louisa refused to panic.

As for page 7, however, that page manager did not even show up on Saturday, but not much was lost on the actual page, since little had been done last week. My first inclination was to call her and rip her, but she was hardly alone.

Cassie, who was to produce the front page "day after the election" art, was nowhere to be found. I ended up calling her at home. She seemed genuinely surprised that I would be calling about a school assignment. She did make a solemn vow to deliver the art first thing Monday morning.

The girl who was so eager to write the "Legend of Sleepy Hollow" rehearsal story - we are teasing the play this issue - appears blissfully unaware that we actually need her copy. She was out of town. Dani, the news page manager, had a hard time believing that the lead story on her page was simply blown off, but Abigail, who is in the play, volunteered to put something together quickly.

Of course, twenty minutes later, Abigail's ride arrived, so she had to bail. Dani sighed, and left soon after. Her ride was here, after all.

We have Monday to recover from these disasters, and others, but I despair of the possibility of having the kids do any serious editing or proofreading.

I have told the staff that we will go to press Monday night, whether we are ready or not. There are basketball teams that are not really ready to play the first game, but the game gets played. And we should never forget that one team loses that first game - sometimes by a lopsided score.

Right now, I'd rate us distinct underdogs.

Jack Kennedy

Rock Canyon HS

Highlands Ranch CO 80124

jkkennedy@comcast.net

jack.kennedy@dcsdk12.org

Note: This is part of a series of columns on working with a completely untrained staff. It is cryptotherapy for me. It may occasionally provide something positive for you. It's all uncharted territory, that's for sure.