Student Newspaper

The two young thieves were brazen and unrepentant." 'The greatest thrill I get is when I'm stealing,' " one Atholton High School student boasted in an interview with Atholton student journalist Michelle Hamby.Burglary, car break-ins, the sale of stolen goods -- the anonymous Columbia students claim that they have done it all.In the November issue of the Raider Review, Atholton's student newspaper, the two students brag about their exploits in an article that still has schoolmates talking and some parents complaining about the article's tone.

I went to college to become an actress. Faithful readers will not be surprised to learn of my dramatic inclinations, but I had leading roles in all my high school plays, and I was Pennsylvania state champion in forensics before it was something used to solve murders on television. A career in the theater was going to be a tough sell to parents who had never gone to college themselves and weren't sure what I was doing to begin with. So I told my parents I was going to college to become a speech and theater teacher so that I could, in turn, direct high school plays and teach students the confidence-building value of competing in forensics, before it became something real-life juries wanted to see more of. But when I got to college, I found that everybody in the theater department was having sex with everybody else and, being that I was the last virgin on the floor section of my dorm, it freaked me out. So I joined the student newspaper to write about theater — those who can, do; those who can't, report on it — and began my life as a journalist.

IN AN ERA when some major newspapers in America are going out of business, it is welcome news to hear that the students of Glen Burnie High School have resumed publication of their own paper, Big Red.Teacher Janet Keatts started the ball rolling last year to revive the publication. She got a positive response when she approached Oliver Wittig, the principal, for support and seed money. When David Hill took over as principal this year, he was equally enthusiastic. The first issue hit the streets last week.

Maryland football coach Ralph Friedgen and a number of his players criticized the campus newspaper Tuesday for an editorial cartoon making light of the motor-scooter accident that left offensive lineman Pete DeSouza hospitalized with multiple leg fractures. The cartoon by Morgan Noonan in The Diamondback, an independent campus daily, depicts a woman addressing a player in helmet and full pads. "I didn't think there was a game today," she says. The player replies: "There isn't.

A state senator has offered to allow journalism students at Baltimore's Southern High School -- who shut down their newspaper because of a dispute with the principal over its content -- to publish an "underground" version out of his office. "If the matter regarding the newspaper is not resolved I would make resources available to you and your colleagues to publish an underground (sorry for the terminology) newspaper that would allow you to report in a truthful manner the conditions at Southern," Sen. George W. Della Jr. wrote to several students who contacted his office last month.

The Columbia Scholastic Press Association has designated the Owl, Westminster High School's student newspaper, a Crown Award nominee.Crown Award nominees are newspapers receiving 940 or more points out of a possible 1,000. points. The Owl received 979 points for coverage, writing and editing, design, hands-on production and business.

DRIVE THROUGH the gates of the private educational facility known as the Glen Mills Schools, and you'll read a sign to your right paying tribute to one or more of the sports teams. The one today reads "Good Luck, Wrestling, Power Lifting, Indoor Track." There's a parking lot just to the left of the sign. Climb some wooden stairs, and you're on the campus quadrangle, with the administration building on the left and the student union just ahead. Classroom buildings and residence halls are to the right.

This is prettay, prettay, prettay cool. Larry David, the creator/star of HBO's "Curb Your Enthusiasm" and, of course, a co-creator/writer of "Seinfeld," was apparently seen on the University of Maryland-College Park campus on Tuesday, escorting one of his daughters on a campus tour, according to UMD's student newspaper, The Diamondback.  The Diamondback reports that college officials wouldn't comment on the alleged sightings, but David is...

In a case that holds national implications for race-based scholarships, a federal judge in Baltimore yesterday ruled that a blacks-only scholarship program at the University of Maryland at College Park is constitutional.The challenge to the Benjamin Banneker Scholarship Program originated with a suit by a straight-A, part-Hispanic student who claimed the scholarship program was unconstitutional because it gave preferential treatment to blacks at the expense of other students.U.S. District Judge Frederick J. Motz rejected that argument in 1991.

I sense that Maryland basketball coach Gary Williams isn't a big fan of the student newspaper, given his response to a reporter's question Saturday night about Williams perhaps being discouraged by the close margins in the two exhibition games. "Let's see, it's Nov. 4 ... yeah, I quit," he said. "It's exhibition. I'm not even trying to win these games. Is that a Diamondback question? I go into those games trying to get guys on the court, and I don't always have the right combination for the right situation out there.