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Written By Maria Putnam |

Well, it’s that time of year again. School is over. Seniors are going off to college in a couple months, and all the other students will soon begin the next year of  high school with new classes.  There is one elective that spread through the school like wild fire. It was meant to just be another elective to teach students about Journalism, but it turned into much more than anyone expected. A simple class of a few seniors and juniors, including myself, gathered together and created Morgan’s main news source in the spring of 2012. The Morgan PawPrint has become the school blog which teachers, students, and the Clinton community enjoy.

Let’s bring it back to 2012, when The Pawprint was born. As I said before, the Journalism class originated with a group of juniors and seniors. One of our first contributions to The PawPrint was a section called “The Reel Morgan”. Students, Rob Gabucci and Alex Robertson, made multiple videos, showing what goes on in The Morgan school. One of their videos included classmate and editor of The Morgan Pawprint, Serafina. The boys interviewed Serafina half way through the semester to ask her thoughts and opinions on the progress of our blog. Serafina expressed the  positive outlook that the original staff of The PawPrint had about what this blog would soon become. But again, this was only just the beginning.

I  also wrote “What is The Morgan PawPrint?”.  At this point, the blog had become involved with a small controversy between another school newspaper, The Husky Herald.  The Husky Herald  has always been a student run school newspaper. When Mrs. Chausses’s Journalism class created The Morgan PawPrint, peers from the Husky Herald thought we were trying to over run their news feed. I took the opportunity to write a piece about the confusion to inform people about The Morgan PawPrint’s intentions  and to explain what we were all about. During this  first year of  The PawPrint,  nobody had a clue that this blog would soon over the next year, grow to be as big as it is now. It started as a sort of conflict but opened a door to opportunity.

If you want to hear about the new and upcoming,  go to the main source who inspired it all, right? Well that is exactly what we did. In “The Morgan PawPrint’s First Generation,” an article published after the first semester of Journalism, Steph Strucaly explained how The Morgan PawPrint was born. I remember walking into the class the first day of second semester of my junior year, clueless about what I had signed myself up for. Mrs. Chausse, like every other teacher with a new class, explained to us what the objective of the year was, and it was simply to create an online school newspaper. By doing this, we would be learning a variety of journalism skills while  improving our writing.  Mrs. Chausse helped us  turn a simple class into a site that everyone in Clinton knows about. Who knew such a small class would create such a big piece of Morgan?

Our principal, Mrs. Hagness, has been another major contributor to our blog and seems to very much enjoy it. Speaking with her briefly, Mrs. Hagness informs me that, “I think the whole experience promotes the school positively. It is something the community and the students can benefit from, and it really captures our school environment greatly.” Mrs. Hagness has given several students that write for the blog, handfuls of information on upcoming school events and even the new school itself. Without her help and useful information, our articles wouldn’t be as well known for being up to date and packed with good information that people are truly interested in. Thank you Mrs. Hagness!

It is obvious that anyone involved in this evolving aspect of Morgan will speak  highly of it. To get an outsider’s opinion, I  spoke with Mr. K, who has always supported my writing and The Morgan PawPrint. As he puts it, “It is a really good way for students to offer their perspective on certain issues, and I think you are a phenomenal writer.” Thanks Dude!

So there you have it, The Morgan Pawprint. From being a simple elective class that students chose to just get that credit they needed, to being a very popular blog here at Morgan that everyone in our community seems to use, it is clear that The PawPrint has grown rapidly. I have greatly enjoyed writing for such a news feed, and I’m glad to have been part of the class that started and created it all. It is amazing how much our blog has succeeded. Don’t believe me? Check out the mind sparking articles our peers have written for your satisfaction. The blog includes anything from sports events to world news. See for yourself why The Morgan Pawprint is such a big hit.