Encina High School newspapers

Below are some comments about newspapers at Encina:

It started out as the Tomahawk back in 1958. It was still the Tomahawk while I was in school in 1973 and up to Volume 14. But by 1977 they were up to Volume 4 of the Encina Asylum, which implies that the Tomahawk morphed into the Asylum around 1974.

Paul Stewart '76 writes:
I wasn't a joiner in high school, now at last I can contribute! The newspaper page guesses that the "Tomahawk" morphed into the "Encina Asylum." Come now, some of you will remember the few issues of our school paper that appeared in between sometime during the '73 -'74 year. It was called "The Underground Dirt."

I remember "The Tomahawk" during my freshman year '72-'73, it was the last real looking newspaper the school had through '75-76. The rest seemed to be more like newsletters that were only a page or two long. I loved the name "Encina Asylum." But how could you forget a name like "The Underground Dirt?"

The '73-'74 year began with no newspaper for quite awhile, so I wouldn't say the "Tomahawk" turned into any other paper as it was buried. (Pun intended.) Then I remember during that school year issues of a new attempt at a paper appeared. It was main stream, supervised and handed out in classrooms, not really underground. I remember it as only one page. The last copy had a noticed at the bottom that said "final issue" long before the school year was out.

I'm sure others will back me up about the existence of the fleeting mysterious "Underground Dirt." A lot of students must have been involved with it. Finding an old copy could be a Rosetta Stone!

Teacher Stephanie Woo wrote:
Encina has not had a school newspaper for the students for at least ten years. EBS (Encina Broadcasting System) supplanted it under the direction of our then principal, Napolean B. Triplett. I am trying to research the teacher who was last in charge of the newspaper class but memories have faded and people have moved on or out. By the way, EBS was first begun by LaVerne Gonzales (shown only to English classes), passed on to Sam Berger, and then I inherited it. When Sam was in charge, EBS was televised to the entire school because a grant provided monitors in each classroom.

Ray Sodini 68 wrote:
With regards to the school newspaper... Several students, including myself put together an unsupervised, underground, school newspaper called the 'Sad Hotchi'. in about 1967 and/or 1968. It touched upon several "controversial" subjects which ranged from drug use to dress codes and the ever present war in Viet Nam. Nothing was sacrosanct. I still have three copies of this periodical squirreled away somewhere. It was a runaway bestseller that sold for about fifty cents.  All of the profits were plowed into dog food for Stan Stinnet's dog whose  name was... you guessed it... Hotchi.
After three issues the 'Sad Hotchi' was banned by the Principal and the Dean of Boys (Mr. Golden and Mr. Basset?) I am still indebted to these  two men for instilling in me, a very deep love for free speech. If I remember correctly, one of the objections was to the use of the word 'Hotchi'. According to Mr. Golden, it meant prostitute or conjugal relations somewhere over in asia. Interestingly enough, I was there when Stan's dog was named. We were looking for a name that meant nothing and had (as far as we knew) no precedents. It was truly meant to be a meaningless sound or utterance  without meaning or purpose beyond the eventual response of this poor stray.
Had there been a fourth issue, I was working on a Viet Nam piece that was going to report the war over there like a sports piece using  casualty numbers for scoring the game, etc. etc.... I of course once thought about gunning down all of my fellow students after the initial mortar attack, but I woke up from this  nightmare sweating and shaking and thinking that I would never eat any more of the institutional lunch food that was being served at Encina at that time.

Erik Olson 79 wrote:
"The Tomahawk became the EncinAsylum in 1975-76. I don't know if that was BeBe McKenzie's first year as adviser, but I remember there was a desire for a fresh start for the paper. There was a brainstorming session that focused on Encina puns, including such names as "Encinarator". I'm digging deep in my memories for this one, but I believe Tracy Godfrey, a cartoonist for the paper, came up with the name. The paper lasted in that form until 1981-82 or thereabout. There was some controversy surrounding its closure, and I believe some students came up with an underground paper for a short while after that.

One of the highlights from that first year was a group of newspaper staffers was upset with the direction of the basketball team and ended up challenging the team to a game to prove a point. I don't remember the score, but I believe it was close.

As a high school journalism adviser now, I can say it's tough to keep a newspaper going because it's a rare administration that will support a newspaper program because of the potential hassles; many students are not drawn to journalism because of the amount of writing; and teachers don't want the job because they don't have the journalism background, and there's a lot of grief associated with the job."

Mark Winchester 83 wrote:
Bebe McKenzie was in charge of the paper when I was there. Surprisingly, I think that I have 50-100 issues lying around. I'll see if I can locate them.

Marny Youngdahl 89 wrote:
In the late 1980's (85-88) Susie McGuire was both Newpaper teacher and English teacher. I just flipped through my year books for 85-89, and the following is what I found.

85-86: the newspaper was called The Encina Times. According to the yearbook, McGuire wrote and recieved a grant to buy a copier with additional help from student council.

86-87: The yearbook includes a picture of the newspaper staff, but does not include a newspaper name or a teacher's name.

87-88: There is a picture of the newspaper staff and McGuire, but no newpaper title.

The first appearance of the EBS staff in the yearbook under the direction of Mr.Berger.

88-89: There is no mention of the newspaper. EBS staff picture is included. However there is no teacher picture or name.

I don't have any copies of the Encina Times, however I do have a few copies of the underground newspapers that students published in 86-87 such as:

Cloak & Dagger
The Student Free-Press
The Misanthrope
The Rah Rah

These newspapers were mostly about seniors, who is dating whom, questionable remarks about staff, and all in all sillyness. They were well written and creatively put together. Sorry I don't have more information about The Encina Times.

John Adorador 92 wrote:
Around 1990, the computer club @ Encina decided to start a newspaper. It was named "The Encina Spectrum". It was a fun paper to be involved with, but it didn't have much success compared to EBS - (Encina Broadcast System) which brought news quicker to the students. I believe only three or four issues came out of it.

I may have a copy or two of different issues around, it is just a matter of finding them. Since I have moved places a bunch of times since 1997, I am unsure of the whereabouts of these papers. I imagine that one or two could be floating around in some boxes somewhere. I'll let you know whether or not I can find them.

Brian Knoff '89 questioned if anyone remembers the Misanthrope newspaper. It seemed to last the longest, passing through many years. Brian also wonders if anyone has back issues, as the Misanthrope seemed to track Encina life pretty well. Plus it wasn't a 'garage' paper that was anti-whatever.

Bill Farley 77 was one of those who started EBS under LaVerne Gonzales:
"It's been 25 years and all I'm sure of is that we (Spencer Burke) and I did it to avoid real classes.

As I type this it is starting to come back to me. Spencer and I were active in photography and started making films. Gonzales did the Senior film every year so all of that equipment was accessible to us. When video tape came
out, I believe Gonzales started using that for basketball in 1975 - I remember getting Jim Burke to do the play by play. I think from that we launched into the EBS show. Lindquist, the librarian bought some equipment as well and it took off. I remember Spencer doing some of the early 60 seconds bits as a knock off on 60 minutes. I also remember installing all of those TVs in the English rooms for our 5-10 minute segment. The next year (76) we had two crews - Spencer had one and I had the other. The next (77) year another group took over from us. As I mentioned in our bio,
Gonzales let Spencer and I get english credits for writing scripts for EBS. We discovered that he was accredited for teaching english and pursuaded him to give two academic weaklings a break."

Mark Oldfield 78 wrote:
The EBS memoir in the recent update brought back some fond memories. In 1978, a few classmates and I -- Dan Will and Paul Knepprath come to mind, although I'm no doubt leaving out some important people -- picked up where the EBS founders left off.  We put together some irreverent and flat-out fun broadcasts that I still look back on with pride. I distinctly remember
Principal Bassett pulling me aside one day and saying, "Don't turn this into Saturday Night Live."  That's when I knew we were hitting the mark.  It would not have been possible without Laverne Gonzales, of course, but the person I most appreciated was Kirt Shearer, class of 1980, who must have been a kick-butt AV monitor in grade school because he knew how to work every piece of video equipment in the studio.  Funny guy, too. Irreverent. I liked that about him.  You out there, Kirt?

I found it interesting that the recent memoir of EBS said it brought about the demise of the Tomahawk newspaper.  I missed the earlier discussion on this, and I'm not sure where one paper ended and the other began, but in 1978 we still had the EncinAsylum. Aside from having a better name than the Tomahawk (oooh, class warfare!), it also was a good read.  Maybe that's because I was never on staff...

Susan Hobson 84 wrote:
I may be wrong, but I seem to remember the newspaper and EBS coexisting for a period of time in the 80's.  I remember EBS being around my freshman year in 1980 and I know we also had the paper.  In my junior or senior year we  also had an underground paper that was hilarious.  I think Laura Pelfanio  might be someone to contact about the underground paper--she may even have copies somewhere.  It would be wonderful to see those again.  I remember it  causing a huge uproar in the school.  The group responsible would raid the school in the middle of the night to leave the papers taped to lockers.   There would be some wonderful gossip and some very healthy criticism of the staff.

Last updated: 11/13/2010