Ranger photo adviser Tricia Buchhorn and Ranger production manager Mary Zamora conducted sessions Nov. 28 at the Northside Independent School District Journalism Forum.
The all-day forum brings together 57 journalism students from seven high schools.
Buchhorn led a three-hour class in Photoshop, and Zamora and San Antonio Express-News page designer Imelda Robles led a session on InDesign.
Earlier in the semester, Buchhorn visited with student newspaper editors at Taft High School and led an InDesign workshop for design students. She also spent two days with news photography classes at Wagner High School where she taught photojournalism skills.
Recruiting is a year-round activity for the journalism-photography department.
Chair Marianne Odom attended a College Night Nov. 14 at Lee High School and talked with students from Lee and the North East School of the Arts about studying journalism and photography at San Antonio College.
Former Ranger illustrator Vincent T. Davis, now a reporter at the San Antonio Express-News, believes an interest in journalism starts early.
He visits Gardendale Elementary School four times a semester to encourage the youngsters. He tells the children that they're learning in school the things he uses every day, such as grammar, punctuation and figures of speech.
Davis also stresses the seamless path to a career in journalism ‹ taking journalism in middle and high school, attending the Urban Journalism Workshop at SAC, studying journalism here, earning a four-year degree and going to work at the Express-News.
He also distributes SAC toothbrushes and Ranger pencils.
New Instructor Susan Merkner (left) has revived a course in public relations that will be offered in the spring 2007 semester.
COMM 2330, Introduction to Public Relations, hasn't been taught in the department in several years.
Faculty teaching COMM 1307, Introduction to Mass Communications, are encouraging students interested in pursuing a career in public relations to get a head start by enrolling in this class.
With a strong writing background, Merkner plans to stress writing as the foundation for all public relations activities. Writing is the No. 1 skill local public relations practitioners say they want in people they hire.
Lecturer Cindy Sims (right) is planning a Saturday morning class in Photoshop.
COMM 2324, Practicum in Electronic Media (Digital), will meet from 9 a.m.-1 p.m. Saturdays in the spring 2007 semester. This is the first Saturday class the department of journalism-photography has offered.
The popular instructor is hoping students find mastering Photoshop skills a great way to start a weekend.
Also back by popular demand for spring 2007 is an evening section of the department's beginning reporting course. COMM 2311, Newsgathering and Writing 1, will meet from 6 p.m.-9 p.m. Monday and Tuesday.
Instructor Irene Abrego is reaching out to students who may not be able to attend day classes. Students in this class will be assigned beats and write stories for The Ranger.
Instructor Irene Abrego (left) is volunteering time tutoring two students taking logic classes.
Ranger associate editor Julie Ann Sanchez is taking PHIL 2303, Introduction to Logic, at this college, and Vincent T. Davis, former Ranger illustrator and now a reporter at the San Antonio Express-News, is enrolled in Elementary Logic at Texas State University-San Marcos.
When both needed help, Abrego, who studied logic and liked it, organized occasional Friday tutoring sessions in the journalism-photography department and weekend sessions at Barnes & Noble.
The sessions are particularly important to Davis because this is the last class he must complete to graduate in December.
The chapter now has 14 members after the Nov. 21 meeting.
They are: Julian Aguilar IV, Denise Blaz, Charles Cima, Nicole Colangelo-Lessin, Eileen Pace Fitzsimmons, Sonya Harvey, Dwight A. James, Jacqueline Jordan, Natalia Monemayor, Robert J. Pohl, Garrett Redd, Larissa M. Robinson, César G. Rodriguez and Amber Whittaker.
This may be the largest membership since the chapter was chartered in 1992 when 19 members were initiated.
Aguilar was elected president; Pohl, vice president; Montemayor, secretary/historian; Cima, treasurer; and Harvey, public relations officer.
The 22nd annual Urban Journalism Workshop at San Antonio College ended successfully June 23 with the closing luncheon. Twelve students produced the workshop newspaper, You S.A., and 11 current or former students served on the workshop staff as resident assistants, team leaders or consultants. To see what happened during the 13 days of the event, click on Boot Camp 2006.
Three workshoppers received scholarships from the Alamo Community College District to study journalism or photography at SAC.
The $1,500 scholarships were awarded to Torrie Bethany, Brackenridge High School; Yvonne Freckmann, North East School of the Arts; and Mia Victoria Cortez, Taft High School.
The awards are presented each year for students to study journalism or photography at San Antonio College. Winners last year now studying at SAC are Chantae Arrington of Warren High School and Brandy Bineham of Taft High School.
Click here to see "Campus postcards from
a journalism workshop."
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The Journalism-Photography Department has its share of star power at the San Antonio Express-News with six columnists listed on MySanAntonio.com.
They are Joe Ålexander, who writes Courtside With Joe; Maria Anglin, who attended the Urban Journalism Workshop as a high school student; Jim Beal, a music columnist who also works a shift each Thursday on radio station KSYM; Dave Davies, who writes a video games column; John Goodspeed, who writes about country and western music; and Chris Quinn, who writes a column on "weird television shows" in the Sunday Express-News TV Guide.
The Ranger staff sponsored Chalk Day (photo at right) and brought the San Antonio Express-News promotional Hummer to campus Oct. 6 to celebrate National Newspaper Week.
Staffers in red Ranger T-shirts provided chalk to students in the mall area south of Loftin Student Center and encouraged them to practice their right of free speech by writing or drawing a message on the sidewalk.
Many did -- and messages included political statements, a variety of religious views and a few love declarations. Crowd reaction was positive.
The Ranger staff's prayers for rain -- to avoid having to clean the sidewalks -- were answered Oct. 10.
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Students, faculty and staff from the journalism program stop for a photo (right) on their trip to Laredo to visit the Laredo Morning Times.
Students in COMM2311, COMM2315 and COMM1316 were invited to attend the annual field trip to visit a commercial newspaper. In the past, the group has visited the Houston Chronicle and the Corpus Christi Caller-Times.
The trip was arranged by Instructors Irene Abrego, Edmund Lo and Marianne Odom with the help of Morning Times editor Diana R. Fuentes.
Fuentes became editor of Laredo Morning Times in May 2004.
In 1989, Fuentes worked for the San Antonio Light as a police and courts reporter. The next year, she was hired by the San Antonio Express-News, where she worked until 1998, when she became managing editor of The Beaumont En-terprise. In 2001, she returned to the San Antonio Express-News as night metro editor.
Fuentes has worked for Hearst Newspapers for more than 20 years, including stints at the San Antonio Express-News as Austin Bureau chief, assistant state editor, regional editor and political editor. She also has worked for the Del Rio News-Herald and for the now-closed Laredo News, where she started her journalism career on the copy desk in 1977.
Covering the Spurs was a dream former journalism student Johnny Ludden made come true through his studies at San Antonio College.
"I knew I wanted to be a sports writer ever since I was a sophomore in high school," San Antonio Express-News reporter Johnny Ludden said Sept. 8, offering words of motivation to a group of journalism students at a Brown Bag lunch in Room 209 of Loftin Student Center.
Ludden is now in his ninth year covering the San Antonio Spurs for the Express-News, and he writes about 300 bylined stories each year.
"I've written for these guys so long that it becomes difficult," Ludden said. He occasionally finds himself plagiarizing from his own previous stories because of the number of Spurs articles he has written.
"This was my dream job as a kid. I grew up in San Antonio and always wanted to cover the Spurs," Ludden said. "I'm covering the most successful period in the Spurs franchise history."
After graduating from John Marshall High School, Ludden enrolled here from 1989 to 1991, earning first the sports editor position and then editor of The Ranger.
"Professors here helped me get my first job at the Express," Ludden said.
In 1991, he transferred to the University of Texas in Austin where he began writing for the student newspaper, The Daily Texan. He served as sports editor and managing editor there. In 1995, he won an internship at the Washington Post.
"When you start out, you always get these horrible assignments," Ludden said, telling the students about a feature story on synchronized diving that he had been assigned.
Ludden was eventually offered a newspaper design job at the St. Petersburg Times, but instead decided to work the design desk at the Washington Post.
Four or five months later, Ludden received a call from the Express-News and was asked to return to San Antonio to cover college football. Having prior knowledge that he would be assigned to cover the San Antonio Spurs after a couple of years, he accepted the position.
"I started covering the Spurs in the lockout season," Ludden said. He recalled his earlier meetings with Gregg Popovich, the head coach of the Spurs. "Pop could be pretty intimidating at first when I started covering the team."
Students were excited to hear about some of the many perks that a journalism career can offer, such as travel and celebrity acquaintances.
Because the Spurs have so many players from other countries, Ludden has had the chance to travel to Argentina, France and Italy.
Ludden notes there is a downside to so much travel.
"I spend about a third to half of my year in a hotel room."
Needless to say, a telephone conversation with Tony Parker is not at all uncommon for Ludden.
"When I'm on the road I can sit through everything," Ludden said, explaining how he gets more one-on-one time with Spurs team members during travel.
"If you cover an NFL team, you're probably only going to talk to the quarterback once a week," Ludden said.
After nine years, Ludden has had the opportunity to gain the team's trust, learning more about the team than is written in his stories. When asked to impart any juicy, off-the-record stories concerning the Spurs, he responded with humor.
"I always joke that I'm saving them for the book," Ludden said.
Story by Jonathan Munson, COMM2311 student
Adam Yanelli, a former sports editor at The Ranger and editor of The Fourth Write, has moved from the Uvalde Leader-News to Fort Bend County as editor of Fort Bend/Southwest Sun in Sugar Land.
"And so far, so good," Yanelli wrote. "We're owned by Houston Community Newspapers, which owns 35 in the area, so things have been a little different from what I was used to."
He said folks have welcomed him and complimented him on his work.
"I immediately attributed it to the SAC journalism department."
Yanelli can be reached at
Fort Bend Sun
Houston Community Newspapers
13815 Southwest Freeway
SugarLand, TX 77478
281/242-1812
hcnonline.com
The Legacy, the newsletter of Friends of Journalism at San Antonio College
The chapter received its SPJ charter on Oct. 6, 1992, as the first two-year college chapter in the United States. 
What if your friend was set to die in a week and all you could do is say goodbye? Knowing someone on death row is pretty much like that. You know that person is going to die, but you can't do anything about it. 
Elaine Marsilio, a senior at the University of Texas at Arlington and a former student in this department, was selected as one of six students in the country to report for the Scripps Howard News Service in Washington, D.C. in spring 2006.
From January to April, Marsilio covered government, politics.
