Tiger Times goes digital during pandemic

MULLAN — The current COVID-19 pandemic has forced many groups, organizations, businesses and educational facilities to adapt to life with limited face-to-face interactions.

Mullan Jr./Sr. High School’s journalism class is no exception and had to change up their methods toward the end of the school year to keep their main news product, the Tiger Times, going.

MHS journalism teacher Paul Elston explained that the Tiger Times is normally a student-written, monthly print publication that serves to inform the school of the various happenings and events that take place at MHS. The students who put together the Tiger Times are also responsible for assembling the school’s yearbook.

Because of the school closures that came with the pandemic, Elston and his seven-student staff decided that the only way to keep the news flowing was to go digital.

“In discussion with our Tiger Times staff, we felt the need to continue publishing the paper online through the school closure,” Elston said. “I never felt at all like the kids wished to stop writing the paper just because we physically closed school.”

After some experimentation with various programs that they were already using to create the print product, it was time to make history. On April 30, the first e-edition of the Tiger Times was published and sent out as a pdf through email to staff and students alike.

“The kids did a really good job with this,” Elston said. “For the April edition, everyone met their deadline. That’s saying something, since the only way we are able to communicate is through email and an occasional live stream session.”

The Tiger Times’ student editor, Lila Hileman, put the paper together, then forwarded the finished product to Elston to be sent out. Stories included in the publication are authored by Sairah Haig (managing editor), Leah Frazier (business manager), Eliza Frank (staff writer), Sierra Ringsbye (staff writer), Karsen Pfaff (staff writer) and Linsay Waters (staff writer).

Elston said that while electronic copies were always an option for the Tiger Times in the recent past, and will continue to be in the future, they simply never needed to go that route until recently when all classes went online-only.

“I would say there is a good chance the online format will continue along with the return of the hard copies, as the kids really enjoy handing out completed versions of what they just wrote,” he added.

The Tiger Times had previously been published on paper since the 1960s, when the Times replaced “The Microphone,” Mullan High School’s original student publication.

With the 2019-2020 school year over, the Tiger Times will take a brief hiatus, but it will be back next year.

“Yes, we had to make adjustments, but our Tiger Times staff has done a great job with continuing the publication of our student newspaper despite the obvious fact that kids are not physically in school,” Elston said.