Lone Wolf, Basic HS (newspaper, 2022–2024)
Role: Faculty Adviser
Contribution: Instruction, Initial Layout/Design, Photography
Served as the adviser to the Lone Wolf newspaper (more of a newsmagazine, now), the longest continuously-printed newspaper in Henderson, Nevada; the student newspaper of Basic Academy of International Studies (formerly Basic High School).
As adviser, I taught my Journalism I and II students the fundamentals and advanced principles of journalism, including story development, interviewing, bias and balance, AP style, invesestigation techniques for long-form, public-interest journalism, graphic design, media production business practices and media law.
In 2023, we won 2nd-best newspaper from the annual Las Vegas Review-Journal high school journalism contest competing with high school newspapers around Southern Nevada.
Spreads from the eightieth volume of the El Lobo yearbook (2023). The theme, “It’s a Basic Thing” was a tongue-in-cheek reclamation of the word basic from it’s typical, idiomatic meaning of the word basic, which typically is used to refer to that which is hoplessly cliché.
El Lobo, Basic Academy (Yearbook, 2022-2024)
Role: Faculty Adviser
Contribution: Instruction, Oversight, Initial Layout/Design, Photography
Served as adviser to the El Lobo yearbook at Basic and taught Publications I/II, the students of which created the yearbook.
In those courses, I taught the fundamentals of bookmaking, managing a publications business, media and mass communications marketing, social media marketing, layout, graphic design, business accounting, profit/loss analysis, business filings, records management, editing and story development, theme development, photography, etc.
You know. This and that.
Lone Wolf, Basic HS (newspaper, 2008–09)
Role: Student Editor-in-ChiefContributions: Reporting, Editing, Layout
Plot twist! I was the editor in chief of the Lone Wolf when I was in high school, at Basic High School. It’s no thang but a chicken wang.
I learned Adobe’s Creative Suite 3 after installing it myself on a MacBook with the PVC-white exterior from school with a CD-ROM the librarian let me borrow, because you could do that back then.
Oh, and there wasn’t a subscription fee. To younger readers—yes, you could own the copy of the software you bought on a physical object you had in your possession that worked regardless of whether or not it was connected to the internet. How about that?
Obviously, any kid growing up in Vegas teaching themselves graphic design, who has a tendency to overcompensate pretentiously when it comes to lives miscellanea, I ignored Adobe Illustrator, as vectors were considered cheap. I lived, laughed, and loved InDesign.
It really hasn’t changed much. I mean, it’s like the best thing ever. So, ya know. Though I don’t do much of it now, I realize that it served almost as a way for me to relax. (I did say, pretentious, did I not?) I think making type look pretty satisfied some desire of mine to communicate effectively and make things look orderly. Like, cleaning windows. My fellow ADHD people will understand.
We won best reduced-format among high school newspapers, also from the Las Vegas Review-Journal that year. #basicallybetter
Left to right—Soccer Slump: I wrote that article, and, the school’s admin tried to get me to retract it and collect all the copies that had just been distributed. Not today, censor. CHANGE: A historic moment: The cover of the November 6, 2008, Lone Wolf newspaper announcing Barack Obama as the 44th President-elect. Who knew so little would change. GIVING: The December 2008 holiday edition of the Lone Wolf highlights how Basic students are helping others during the season.
