The year was 1942. Most of the world was at war. The light of humanity was very dim and was in peril of being extinguished. However, small, bright points of light were still visible. One of those was the relaunch of Pulaski News in the small Wisconsin town of the same name, 20 miles west of Green Bay. What made its light particularly bright was that the Pulaski Community School District owned the newspaper, and the entire staff was composed of high school students. Eighty-three years later, Pulaski News remains the community’s primary news outlet, and high school students still staff the newsroom.
Published every two weeks, Pulaski News is the product of Pulaski High School’s journalism course and its instructor, Amy Tubbs. While she teaches the core skills of good journalism, Bob Van Enkenvoort serves as the paper's editor and manages operations.
The content of the 12- to 20-page newspaper is community-focused, sharing the information and news important to the local populace. According to Van Enkenvoort, the paper’s content is an even split between school and other community news. They avoid hard news and investigative stories because of the staff's inexperience.
“Many of our kids join the news staff as freshmen and sophomores, so we’re freshmen-heavy. By the time they’re juniors and seniors, they’re taking college prep classes for college credits. We have had students on the staff for four years, but they’re focused on their studies and just contribute stories when they have time,” Van Enkenvoort said.
Madelyn Rybak, senior, is one of those students preparing for college, but still has time to write articles for the News. From an early age, she liked writing, but it was in an eighth-grade English class that she became interested in journalism.
“Two high school Pulaski News students came to our class, gave us copies of the newspaper and explained the program. I was sifting through the paper, seeing the names of current staff members, and I thought it would be cool to have my name attached to an article. When I was enrolling for high school, I was looking for clubs to join, so I chose Pulaski News because I love writing,” Rybak said.
Rybak is very interested in pursuing a law degree, but whatever university she attends, she would like to write for its student newspaper. She says learning how to interview people confidently for her Pulaski News articles was the one skill that she expects to serve her well in the future.
The high school also has a broadcasting class. It produces a weekly news video for students that covers athletics, graduation and other events. Some students are involved in both programs.
Randy Riebe was a student news journalist at Pulaski from 1978 to 1981. His interest in journalism stemmed from observing an aunt who was a newspaper editor and from the fact that writing came naturally to him. He’s now retired from a long career, most of it with Gannett/GateHouse as a sports reporter, news editor and a manager at the company’s design center.
“The one thing the Pulaski News taught me more than anything else was to be versatile. Once I was working full-time in journalism, I was more likely to be hired and received better assignments. Learning journalism from an early age certainly prepared me. I would be given assignments instead of my colleagues because they didn’t necessarily have the same skill set,” Riebe said.
Bob Sillick has held many senior positions and served a myriad of clients during his 47 years in marketing and advertising. He has been a freelance/contract content researcher, writer, editor and manager since 2010. He can be reached at bobsillick@gmail.com.
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