Dow Jones names 2008 Journalism teacher honors

Kansas City, Mo. (Oct. 9, 2008) – The Dow Jones Newspaper Fund announced that Karl Grubaugh of Granite Bay High School in Granite Bay, Calif., has been chosen the 2008 National High School Journalism Teacher of the Year.

Grubaugh is the adviser of The Granite Bay Gazette, a full-color, multi-section newspaper of 44 to 56 pages that is published eight times a year. The paper has won scholastic journalism honors including the George Gallup Award from Quill and Scroll and the Gold Crown from Columbia Scholastic Press Association.

Grubaugh will be honored during a ceremony at the JEA/NSPA National High School Journalism Convention in St. Louis, Nov. 13-16.

An adviser from a Walsworth school was among those honored as Distinguished Advisers this year. Renee Burke, the yearbook and newspaper adviser at William R. Boone High School in Orlando, Fla., was chosen as a Distinguished Adviser.

“I’m so honored that somebody recognizes you as doing a good job,” said Burke. “The hardest part for most journalism teachers is that we’re kind of an entity to ourselves. In a lot of high schools, you’re doing your own thing. The English teachers can kind of talk about their lessons together, but we don’t always have someone like that with us.”

Burke said her approach to teaching publications at Boone has been to make her journalism room into a “learning lab.”

“It doesn’t matter whether they’re going into journalism or not, they’re going to learn life lessons here,” said Burke. “Think about working under deadlines. If you can’t meet deadlines, you’re not going to have a job.”

Additional Distinguished Advisers included Ann Visser of Pella Community High School in Pella, Iowa; Valerie Penton of Harrisonburg High School in Harrisonburg, Va.; and Ryan Gunterman of Bloomington High School North in Bloomington, Ind.

This year’s Special Recognition Advisers were Erin Coggins of Sparkman High School in Harvest, Ala.; Sandra Coyer of Puyallup High School in Puyallup, Wash.; and Susan Newell of Northridge High School in Tuscaloosa, Ala