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GCHS student newspaper<br>makes appearance on campus

GC VILLAGE — The first edition of the Phantom Post student newspaper hit the streets last week and received high marks from school officials and community members.

The Phantom Post newspaper staff includes, from left, Joseph Wilkerson, Jessica Taylor, Crystal Coffey, Marcus Fuhrman (adviser), Callie Bowser, Sarah Monfort, Cayla Shearer and Kellee Kell. Not pictured: Chas Iacampo.

The Post represents the first Grand Canyon School-produced newspaper in five years. The effort is the result of a second semester elective class taught by Marcus Fuhrman.

"It was all done on computers using different templates," Fuhrman said. "We picked out layouts and formats ... and after lots of revision, we had enough to get together an eight-page issue."

The issue was burned onto a compact disk and mailed to a student newspaper publishing company in Alabama. Later the same week, the newspaper was back at the school ready for distribution.

"We were unsure how it would look until it came back, it was a mystery," Fuhrman said. "They were very happy and satisfied and rightly so. We have a couple of more planned in the next six weeks or so. Next time, we’ll try to include some advertising."

Advertising representative Jessica Taylor was confident that the newspaper could secure advertising. She had several contacts set up after serving in that same capacity for the yearbook. Funds raised from advertising will go toward the purchase of new equipment, such as a Zip drive, scanner and digital cameras.

"We’ve had complications because we didn’t have those things," Taylor said.

Joe Wilkerson, who serves on the staff, said there were several positive comments from the community about the newspaper. Reporter Crystal Coffey added that it was a lot of fun putting out the first edition.

"It was really good, but it’s stressful," Coffey said. "But it’s worth it in the end."

Reporter Callie Bowser, who would "like to be a journalist when I grow up," said the next issue would be expanded to 12 pages for a special graduation edition. Fuhrman said the next press run would be increased from 400 to 500 copies in an attempt to get more copies out to the community.

In all, there are eight students in the journalism class. Along with Taylor, Wilkerson, Coffey and Bowser, others include Sarah Monfort, Cayla Shearer, Charles Iacampo and Kellee Kell. Shaun Cochran contributed a comic strip.

The staff wrote several stories with front-page reports on the return of the campus newspaper and the fire tragedy for Colleen Burns and family. There were also various news stories, features and columns inside, including sports and entertainment sections, and a crossword puzzle.

Although there were a few glitches, primarily photo reproduction, Fuhrman said the publishing company gave the Phantom Post a "B" for its first edition. The grade was based on one to three errors for eight pages.

The Phantom Post staff celebrated with breakfast at the El Tovar Hotel.

The Post, which was the name chosen by the journalism students, represents the first school-produced newspaper on campus since 1997. The newspaper will be a second-semester production this year and in the future. It is funded through money allocated to the English department.


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