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Happy birthday to Sophia Claire Matys!

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St. John’s Lutheran Church youth group donates to Toys for Tots

<p>WILKES-BARRE &#8212; Truth is, the editors have spent more time this year on old news than new. Only one issue of the Coughlin Journal has been printed, and another remains in limbo as they scurry to save more than a century of newspapers.</p><p>&#8220;I started packing them in October,&#8221; said sophomore Kallie O&#8217;Donnell, standing in a room in the Coughlin High School annex with what few Journals remained in a building now half-closed. &#8220;It was so sad.&#8221;</p><p>Newspaper adviser Heather Johnson recalls walking into the sorting room one day and asking, &#8220;Why does it look like a funeral in here?&#8221;</p><p>The old Journal office is vacant and off-limits. Most of the newspapers have been moved to another building. Demolition of the Coughlin High School building could begin this summer, and no one knows if the publication recognized as the nation&#8217;s oldest, continuously-published school newspaper will vanish with it. Yet, if it &#8220;looks like a funeral,&#8221; that&#8217;s not because the paper faces an uncertain future. It&#8217;s because the paper holds such a sweeping past.</p><p>It&#8217;s the photographs, the stories, the people, the connections.</p><p>&#8220;My mom went to school here,&#8221; O&#8217;Donnell said. &#8220;I was looking through them as I packed, and I found her picture. My grandparents went here. I found pictures of them.&#8221;</p><p>Johnson pulls out an issue with a cover photo of a couple walking along the old River Commons in Wilkes-Barre. The young woman is Debbie Dunleavy, a former local TV news anchor.</p><p>Johnson flips the pages and stops at a group shot. On the right is the face of Ruth Slamon, later to become Attorney Ruth Borland, a Meyers High School graduate who, with her husband and other volunteers, has turned that school&#8217;s debate team into one of the best in the state.</p><p>How did she land in the Coughlin Journal? &#8220;She was in a gifted program, no doubt,&#8221; Johnson theorizes. Back then, the district likely housed all such classes at one school.</p><p>&#8220;They say Coughlin is the only place where you can sit in the same seat as your parents,&#8221; junior Gillian Worosilla smiles. O&#8217;Donnell seems to pick up the thought. &#8220;It&#8217;s also the only place you can look through the Journals and be certain you&#8217;ll see someone you know.</p><p>&#8220;And you can learn something about them, like finding out that, when she was 16, your mom wanted a Madonna album for Christmas.&#8221;</p><p>For O&#8217;Donnell, the most dramatic moment in the packing process came when she started to pick up older issues that seemed poised to disintegrate at her touch.</p><p>&#8220;I jut kept thinking, <em>I cannot let this 1930 Journal crumble in my hands!</em>&#8221; Then she realized the risk existed even when she wasn&#8217;t in the room. &#8220;I made 14 &#8216;DO NOT TOUCH&#8217; signs.&#8221;</p><p>Johnson said once the journals were sorted and packed, they were transported to the renovated Mackin school building, where students from grades 9 and 10 began attending classes after Christmas break.</p><p>The newspapers are tucked away and likely will stay in their crates until the whole &#8220;new school&#8221; issue is resolved, primarily because there is no room to put them out at Mackin &#8212; which teachers have started calling, variously, &#8220;New Coughlin&#8221; or &#8220;Coughlin East&#8221; to distinguish it from the old building set to be torn down.</p><p>In a way, the relocation is a relief, Johnson said. The irreplaceable collection is now out of the flood plain.</p><p>When Hurricane Agnes forced the Susquehanna River to breech its levees and consume downtown Wilkes-Barre, the water covered the entire first floor at Coughlin, lapping at the top step of the second, where the journals were stored.</p><p>It may have happened decades before they were born, but Worosilla and O&#8217;Donnell smile wistfully at the thought of the newspapers bearing other-worldly protection from the flood&#8217;s voracious grasp.</p><p>&#8220;I think it knew the Journals were up there, and stopped,&#8221; Worosilla chuckled.</p><p>Johnson said that risk returns constantly. &#8220;Every time the river rose, I worried.&#8221;</p><p>The newspapers may be safe now, but not entirely secure. Johnson fears the new sprinklers at the renovated school, and is determined to get all the Journals into plastic containers.</p><p>It turned out there were still more lurking in &#8220;the old Coughlin.&#8221; Johnson&#8217;s adviser predecessor Mary Ellen Blazejewski had stowed a big stack of extra copies in a closet. Johnson said she knew it existed, but never saw it until a fellow teacher handed her &#8212;appropriately, perhaps, in light of the Journal&#8217;s age &#8212;a skeleton key.</p><p>&#8220;Just when I was done sorting and packing the Journals,&#8221; O&#8217;Donnell recounted, &#8220;Miss Johnson says she found another closet.&#8221; Then she laughs. &#8220;I&#8217;d never seen a skeleton key before.&#8221;</p><p>The array of issues reveals the shifting quality of the printed product, the change in student interests and the size of the Journal staff.</p><p>This school newspaper once boasted bylines by the late Dan Flood &#8212; a regional icon, thanks to long tenure in the U.S. House of Representatives, who has a district school named after him &#8212; and the artwork of Ham Fisher, famous for creating the Joe Palooka comic strip, which prompted residents to name part of a mountain after the fictitious boxer.</p><p>Many were printed in color, some have glossy photos. For a while, the paper named a &#8220;couple of the month&#8221; and featured two students on the front. Editors dabbled periodically with the notion of a literary tone &#8212; publishing student fiction and poetry &#8212; and with satire via fake news pages. Anyone read this month&#8217;s &#8220;Evening Snooze&#8221;?</p><p>In its heyday, the Journal thrived on ads and subscriptions. But interest has faded and it can be hard to get money or writers.</p><p>&#8220;They won&#8217;t commit,&#8221; O&#8217;Donnell said of student writers.</p><p>&#8220;And when they do, they take months to write something,&#8221; Worosilla added.</p><p>&#8220;And then it&#8217;s only two sentences,&#8221; O&#8217;Donnell noted.</p><p>The paper used to be printed at the Wilkes-Barre Area Career and Technical Center, but these days it&#8217;s run off a black and white copier.</p><p>&#8220;I look at the old issues,&#8221; O&#8217;Donnell sighed, &#8220;and say, &#8216;Why can&#8217;t <em>we</em> do that!&#8217; &#8221;</p><p>First published in 1893, the Journal has become more than an attempt to report current events in the school. It&#8217;s a research resource, Johnson said, with people from outside the school and students thumbing copies to see what happened when and with whom.</p><p>The next issue, O&#8217;Donnell promises, will record the dramatic changes occurring now. &#8220;The cover story will be about packing them away,&#8221; she says.</p><p>What&#8217;s her lead?&#8221;</p><p>&#8220;My lead?&#8221; She pauses only a moment. &#8220;My lead is how sad it was.&#8221;</p><p>Despite the looming end of Coughlin, Johnson has opted for cautious optimism the Journal will remain. She notes it started before Coughlin was built, simply known as &#8220;The High School Journal.&#8221;</p><p>If anything, district plans for a replacement building on the site of the current one may bring the Journal &#8220;full circle,&#8221; Johnson said, as it becomes, yet again, the &#8220;Journal&#8221; for a new high school.</p><p>But it&#8217;s hard not to contemplate the darker outcome.</p><p>&#8220;It&#8217;s 100 years of history and it&#8217;s over,&#8221; Worosilla said. &#8220;And that really hurts.&#8221;</p><p>&#8220;It&#8217;s not over,&#8221; O&#8217;Donnell countered. &#8220;It&#8217;s going to keep going because I&#8217;m here to make <em>sure</em> it keeps going.&#8221;</p><style>
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<div class="neCaption">This old old Coughlin Journal newspaper features a photo of a student carving a pumpkin. </div></div><div class="metaInfo"><photo0>https://www.timesleader.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/01/web1_coughlinjournal01.jpg</photo0><caption0>This old old Coughlin Journal newspaper features a photo of a student carving a pumpkin. </caption0><photoCredit0>Pete G. Wilcox | Times Leader </photoCredit0></div><div class="neFile"><img class="neImage" src="https://www.timesleader.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/01/web1_coughlinjournal02.jpg">
<div class="neCaption">Coughlin teacher and newspaper adviser Heather Johnson looks through boxes of old Coughlin Journal newpapers. </div></div><div class="metaInfo"><photo1>https://www.timesleader.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/01/web1_coughlinjournal02.jpg</photo1><caption1>Coughlin teacher and newspaper adviser Heather Johnson looks through boxes of old Coughlin Journal newpapers. </caption1><photoCredit1>Pete G. Wilcox | Times Leader </photoCredit1></div><div class="neFile"><img class="neImage" src="https://www.timesleader.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/01/web1_coughlinjournal03.jpg">
<div class="neCaption">Coughlin teacher and newspaper adviser Heather Johnson, right, chats with Journal staff Kallie O&#8217;Donnell, far left, and Gillian Worosilla in the Journal&#8217;s work room in Coughlin High School. </div></div><div class="metaInfo"><photo2>https://www.timesleader.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/01/web1_coughlinjournal03.jpg</photo2><caption2>Coughlin teacher and newspaper adviser Heather Johnson, right, chats with Journal staff Kallie O&#8217;Donnell, far left, and Gillian Worosilla in the Journal&#8217;s work room in Coughlin High School. </caption2><photoCredit2>Pete G. Wilcox | Times Leader </photoCredit2></div><div class="neFile"><img class="neImage" src="https://www.timesleader.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/01/web1_coughlinjournal04.jpg">
<div class="neCaption">Coughlin students and Journal writers Kallie O&#8217;Donnell, left, and Gillian Worosilla share a laugh while looking at old copies of the newspaper in the Journal&#8217;s work room inside Coughlin High School. </div></div><div class="metaInfo"><photo3>https://www.timesleader.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/01/web1_coughlinjournal04.jpg</photo3><caption3>Coughlin students and Journal writers Kallie O&#8217;Donnell, left, and Gillian Worosilla share a laugh while looking at old copies of the newspaper in the Journal&#8217;s work room inside Coughlin High School. </caption3><photoCredit3>Pete G. Wilcox | Times Leader </photoCredit3></div></div>
<div class="metaInfo"><subheadMeta></subheadMeta></div><div class="metaInfo"><bylineMeta><p>By Mark Guydish</p><p>mguydish@www.timesleader.com</p></bylineMeta></div><div class="metaInfo"><shirttailMeta><p>Reach Mark Guydish at 570-991-6112 or on Twitter @TLMarkGuydish</p></shirttailMeta></div>

The nation’s oldest school newspaper awaits its fate as Coughlin High School faces demise