Sentinel High School has been through a lot over the past few years, from changes to school schedules to new faces in the roles of principal and assistant principals, but not as much as the school’s newspaper, The Spartan Scoop. However, some questions have been raised. The main one being, how did it all come together?
Room 507 is the current newsroom and is considered a home to the teacher, Kelly Bathje, and her students. It’s a safe space for those said students and a welcoming environment to everyone. It’s also the home to every known publication of Sentinel’s original newspaper, The Konah. This year, Bathje decided that instead of letting the books of old articles be hidden in a storage closet, she would have them displayed on shelves and walls in her room and in the hallways for students and staff to see.
Missoula County High School has had a school newspaper distributed throughout the hallways since the 1910s. The writers were passionate about their school and it was portrayed through their writing. The articles were student-life oriented, writing about informative topics of the school community and clubs that belonged to the school.
At the beginning of The Konah‘s life, they published multiple features, some for holidays like Christmas or Halloween. There would be information regarding activities or events happening, even places you could shop for Halloween candy or Christmas presents. There was also an April Fool’s Day special edition which featured fake stories to prank the students that cruised through the halls.
There have been discussions that some features from the past could possibly be making a return to The Spartan Scoop, including memories from each class and alumni. The Konah also focused on cross-town rivalries, any milestones that students had overcome, and especially school sports. There were some articles on activities and/or events around town. In addition, in order to print the newspaper, the staff had to solicit advertisers. As a result, the paper featured ads of businesses around Missoula.
With The Konah being around for more than a century, it was passed due to being revamped and created into something more, which is what Bathje decided when she became the newspaper advisor. She believed it was time for a new era of the newspaper and its writers: that’s when it began its journey as The Spartan Scoop in 2020.
Here at Sentinel, present students may not know what the Publications class used to be like for the school’s newspaper.
In 2019, Yearbook and Publications used to be one class, but two different subjects. Sadly, the majority of the students were interested in the yearbook; Publications didn’t have enough time, staff members or interest in the class. Overall, it didn’t have enough resources to be an official class for producing a campus newspaper. The digital program for Sentinel’s newspaper wasn’t officially established until the year students came back from COVID in the Fall of 2020.
During 2020-2021, the students and Bathje were finally granted their own separate class, “Digital Publications”, but there were only four students enrolled in the class. Not having a designated website for their work proved to be difficult, but the four writers distributed a PDF via email for the class. The undergraduates wanted to spread information and get some traction from new possible readers or Scoop members. The current members also had the opportunity to spread what they were doing when Missoula 8KPAX came in to get the Scoop.
An additional problem that year was the outbreak of Coronavirus, which was very difficult for students in many ways (especially in terms of connecting with friends). On top of that, Missoula County Public Schools was forced to construct a hybrid schedule where half of the students would attend in school and the other half were at home with online schoolwork.
Although the newspaper staff struggled as a program, the following year would be better and bring more members. The original four who were involved had gotten more people to join the program in 2021-2022. Adding twelve team numbers made it more convenient to have varied roles, including editors to overlook and help reporters with their articles in the making.
As the school years passed, more people began to join the small organization. Bathje wanted to add a podcast feature to The Spartan Scoop, and all she needed was the equipment plus people who were willing to work. The small bunch of sixteen people turned into twenty-one people, and currently, they’re a team of twenty-five.
With the increasing number of staff in the newsroom, more things were falling in place for the group. The workload became more streamlined, and it was more consistent with the editors and the reporters.
For the 2024-2025 school year, the Spartan Scoop staff is the largest class since 2019, and Bathje is ecstatic. She has eight departments that tackle the work to post on the newspaper website.
The first department is editorial: Caitlyn Busig (11), Kelsie LaRocque (12), Sam Maney (11), and Raychel Doty (10) overlook the articles that have the potential to be published, and they give feedback to the Feature Reporting Department.
Lexi Bartholomew (12), Lydia Becker (12), Lily Marmon (11), Sadie Maloney (12), Aurora Cornelius (11), Alex Peterson (11), Kat Romig (10), and Hannah Bierer (10) focus on their consistent writing, switching between different topics, such as current events, campus life, new teachers at Sentinel, and much more. The Sentinel Scoop also has a sports reporting section, Sam Maney (11), Avery Bucklin (10), and Aurora Barnt (11) write about Sentinel’s sports, and even extend their writing to national sports.
Another critical department for any school newspaper is Illustration. Karma Patey (12), Jade Veal (12), and Page Gambin (12) have used their amazing talents to draw the mascots for The Scoop: Scoopy and Scrappy. They also contribute to drawing pictures for all reporters to use in their articles. The two photographers, Diego Morales (11) and Jude Shull (11) walk around the school to capture the perfect picture for their or someone else’s article, and frequently write photo essays for The Scoop.
Lastly, the department that makes every member laugh is the podcasters: Ryan McKeehan (11), Miranda Hart (11), and Simon Gabriel Montecillo (12). The three of them host, edit, produce, and publish their weekly show called “Three Scoops of Who Knows What?” which explores various topics for Sentinel’s audience.
Lastly, the reason that the entire digital program is advancing is because of the Web Managers. Over the years, the website has experienced several upgrades. This year, Elizabeth Franzon (12) and Rielly Buchholz (11) have made it possible for the newspaper to have a running website, and they’ve been keeping everything up to date and making it improve overall. The staff also has to thank the business and public relations management department, Quin Maus (10), who focuses on fundraising and social media for the Spartan Scoop program.
This year has been a ‘steady ride’ for the organization along with the people involved, including the person in charge, Bathje. She’s exceptionally happy with the way the program was built and is continuing to make progress towards their end goal.
“It needs to be nurtured, and a lot of rapport to be built among staff members” (Bathje).
Bathje feels like the staff is getting a strong flow with what they can do and cover, in terms of the content that they provide for all readers. The participants are confident that they’re capable of making the newspaper evolve. With social media presence and initiatives, the team is confident they can move past a digital website and work on something more interactive for themselves along with the entire school community. The process can be hard, but it is achievable for the hardworking-talented group.
