“Who would have thunk it,” said Mr. Mueller regarding the sudden change in senior Jeff Cook’s journalism mentality. The story of Jeff’s 180-degree turn around is both jaw dropping and inspiring.
Jeff started out his journalism days with a pure lack of motivation and dislike for the class. Instead of caring about due dates and proper grammar use, he just wanted to chill and relax. Like many other students, he signed up for Journalism to take the easy route in senior English classes. He was a sports writer; writing recaps of all of the football games. What did he do with a whole week of free time? He usually got caught up in an online game of some sort.
Now, what in the world made Jeff change his slacker-like ways? It all started when he decided to cause a little mischief in the computer lab. Feeling rather rambunctious, he jumped on top of the island that the computers sat on. Mrs. Slaback instantly jumped on the scene, sentencing Jeff with a month ban from the Library Media Center. Jeff was also ordered to sit in “the corner” of Mr. Thompson’s room for the rest of his confinement.
After Jeff’s time had been served, he was still not allowed to leave the premises of the room. With all the boredom, Jeff finally learned how to layout the paper on the computers, using the paper's layout program QuarkExpress 6.0. It must have been love at first sight because every day since, during fifth hour, he has been busy at work on that darn paper.
Jeff has gone from barely getting a story done to multitasing with stories, editing, and layout management. Now, it is hard to imagine the paper getting published without the help of “Cookie”. Mr. Mueller simply put it, “ He is the man and everyone knows it.” I would have written more on Jeff’s epic journey, but there is a paper that needs to get out!
