YH-R Unleashing Students’ Work Throughout Newspaper

By SARAH JENKINS YAKIMA HERALD-REPUBLIC (Unleashed is) the equivalent of a teen who wants to be a doctor getting to work at a hospital for a couple of years. It’s hands-on. It’s a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. And for teens who want to make a difference, it’s an opportunity worth taking. … With the compilation of opportunities, [...]

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A Look Back, a Look Forward

By ALYSSA PATRICK EISENHOWER HIGH SCHOOL It was 1998 when a somewhat unconventional idea began to grow in the newsroom at the Yakima Herald-Republic. Together, an education reporter and a copy editor approached the big desk of Sarah Jenkins, the newspaper’s top editor, to discuss its origin: low readership among young adults. To fix this [...]

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Who’s Been Reading this Teen Section? Surprisingly, Adults

By ALYSSA PATRICK EISENHOWER HIGH SCHOOL During the past 10 years, Unleashed has picked up an unexpected audience: grown-ups. Turns out everyone from parents and teachers to other community members and leaders seems to like to see what teens have to say. While this wasn’t the intended effect of Unleashed, it was a nice surprise. [...]

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A Confidence-Booster and a Catalyst for Change

By ALYSSA PATRICK EISENHOWER HIGH SCHOOL Three years and four months ago, my name appeared for the first time on the inside back page of the sports section of this newspaper. There it was, proudly sitting atop my first published piece. I was in the eighth grade still, not even a high schooler yet. Not [...]

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Manna from Heaven for a Sports-Averse Teenager

By ALEX FRANK FOR UNLEASHED Narrowing it down to a single, earthshaking turning point isn’t easy. There was my first at-bat in Little League, when I was beaned in the back by a 45 mph fastball courtesy of my best friend. I got on base and, eventually, attempted to score a run that, unbeknownst to [...]

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The Best Training Ground for Tackling Difficult Stories

By ELOÍSA RUANO GONZÁLEZ ORLANDO SENTINEL I’ve always feared vultures. Perhaps it’s because of an old family superstition that the carnivorous bird brings death. Albert Hitchcock’s movie “The Birds” may also have been responsible for this bizarre phobia. Last spring, though, I found myself standing under hundreds of vultures that were ravaging a small town [...]

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A Launch Pad for the Valley’s Young Talent

By DREW TOOP WASHINGTON STATE UNIVERSITY I’ve only been off the team for, oh, how long has it been? A year and some months, I believe. My experiences on Unleashed, I think, have influenced me greatly. However, I’ve already said as much in these pages, so I won’t write too long. I remember my first [...]

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An Outlet for Teenage Subversiveness

By WALTER SCHLECT WASHINGTON STATE UNIVERSITY Two and a half years ago, for reasons I no longer remember, I became curious to see if there was ever a Communist Party in Yakima. My curiosity was not so large that I went to the headquarters of this newspaper, which I wrote for at the time, to [...]

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Some Things Haven’t Changed

“It’s 7 p.m. on a Tuesday evening. In a windowless but comfortable basement room at the YH-R, a few students have already snagged pizza and soda and one of the really comfy chairs while they wait for the rest of their fellow journalists to arrive for this month’s Unleashed meeting.” This is how Mary Fontana, [...]

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“Absolutely everything to me for four years”

By OLIVIA HERNANDEZ SEATTLE UNIVERSITY Unleashed was absolutely everything to me for four years. Writing for the section was my varsity sport, my yearbook, my band, my flag team, my cheerleading squad, my exceptionally geeky anti-drug. Dorky as it may sound, it’s the truth. I invested four years of my youth in writing columns and [...]

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