Santa Maria Sun / School Scene

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BY AMY ASMAN

Righetti High School teacher Robert Garcia has all the makings of an old-school newspaper editor: He doesn’t like whining. He’s a newshound who only wants relevant information printed in his magazine, and he forbids editorializing of any kind.

Working in the lab: Morgan Nelson (left) and Masson Blow are spending their first summer as students in Allan Hancock College’s Bridges to the Baccalaureate program helping a Cal Poly academic track sources of E. coli using molecular fingerprinting. PHOTO COURTESY OF ALLAN HANCOCK COLLEGE

“We’re not going to have any bad poetry in our magazine. No ‘Judy left Billy and now he’s going to eat a lot of chocolate,’” Garcia told his students during the second day of school. “And don’t editorialize. You can only report other people’s opinions ... and you have to get both sides of an issue.”

Garcia said his vision for The Legend magazine, which got reinstated as a sixth period class this year, is “a mix of Rolling Stone and People magazines, and teen magazines with a lot of pictures [because] teenagers love seeing pictures of themselves.”

“But I don’t know any teen magazines,” he admitted, with a laugh.

When the school’s administration approached Garcia about resuscitating The Legend newspaper a few years ago, he said he’d do it but only if he could make it a glossy magazine.

“I was tired of seeing all the papers in the trash can,” he said.

The magazine will come out approximately every month and a half, with a cover story, a letter from the editor, and sections for arts and sports. Garica hopes to publish six or seven issues throughout the school year. The content will also be posted online at righettilegend.wix.com/thelegend and on Facebook.

When the Sun visited The Legend newsroom in mid-August, the students were starting to brainstorm story ideas for their inaugural issue.

“I’m trying to get [the class] to realize that we have to talk about issues. That’s where our story ideas come from. If it’s not interesting to us, it’s not going to be interesting to anyone else,” Garcia said.

The class has two co-editors, senior Iliana Gutierrez and junior Maddisson Hill, both of whom worked on the magazine last year when it was a small after-school club.

Gutierrez said she wants the magazine to “make a statement and ... speak for the school” in a way that is “mature and informative, because a lot goes on at school that people don’t know about.”

Hill agreed, adding that she wants to highlight important issues that affect teens, such as public school funding.

Hill, who has attended military school in other states, said she was appalled by the lack of funding available to public schools.

“This class could have been dropped,” she said.

This year, The Legend was reinstated as a class thanks to a donation from Altrusa International of the Central Coast, which will help pay for a portion of the publishing costs. Garcia said Altrusa will also send in people to help teach the students about advertising, design, and photography.

On top of writing, designing, and editing the magazine, the students are expected to go out in the community to sell ads for the magazine.

“It’s a lot of work to put something like
this out. I was really proud of what the students did last year as a club. They did a great job,” Garcia said.

And it sounds like the students are up for the challenge this year, too.

Junior Melinda McNamee said she’s really looking forward to improving her photography skills as part of the magazine staff.

“I’ve been wanting to do photography for a long time. This is a great opportunity,” she said.

Senior Kaitlyn Brooks, who was part of the club last year, said she signed up again “because it was really open and nice to get to express our opinions. That never really happens in school.”  

School Scene is compiled by Managing Editor Amy Asman. Information should be sent to the Sun via fax, e-mail, or mail.