Literary Activities

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Loch Raven's literary magazine, Under Loch and Key, is a compilation of the creative works of the student body and faculty. The magazine staff includes students from all four grade levels, and it is supervised by Ms. Niamh McQuillan. Students are urged to submit their creative works to the magazine whether they be short stories, poems, photographs, drawings, or dialogues. Students may use writings or graphics that they have produced for classwork in other classes as well as works created on their free time. The staff is putting special emphasis this year on getting the underclassmen to submit, so that the full student body is represented. Entries are accepted until March. The 2008-2009 edition is due out in late April or early May.

The strong bonds of friendship among students, the positive relationship between students and teachers, and the winning tradition of Raider sports teams have combined to make the kinds of memories Loch Raven has enjoyed year in and year out. Small wonder, then, that nearly 70% of the student body purchase copies of Apogee, the school yearbook, at $75 per copy. During the last fifteen years, the yearbook has grown by almost 50% to 304 pages, 60 of which are in full color. The yearbook includes separate sections on academics, student life and activities, sports, underclassmen, and seniors. The closing section includes one of the highlights of the book, senior "grad ads." In 1988, Apogee began offering pages as a way for families and friends of seniors to congratulate their favorite graduate. This segment of the book has become highly popular; having grown from eight pages (all black and white) in its initial year to an average of 65 pages in recent years; senior ads now raise approximately 25% of the yearbook's cost of publication.

Apogee is prepared through Adobe PageMaker 7.0 on Macintosh computers. The colophon page in the closing section of the book not only recognize the staff and identify the printing specifications but also publish a four-point editorial policy that is reflective of accepted scholastic journalism standards. Since 1992, Apogee has been consistently honored by the Walsworth Publishing Company as a Publisher's National Sampler. As a result of this distinction, copies of the book are distributed by sales reps and appear at workshops as an example of quality yearbook publication. Editors graduate with at least two and as many as five credits in yearbook journalism; they frequently opt in their junior and senior years to take yearbook two periods per day. Credits for yearbook experience and publishing enterprise are available at both the honors and G/T levels. After their graduation from high school, editors from Loch Raven's yearbook program are quickly recognized for their desktop publishing skills and are eagerly courted by their college public relations offices and yearbook publications.

Loch Raven High School's newspaper, Revelation, is produced seven times a year by the students of Journalism II, III and IV classes. Funded in part by advertisements from local businesses, each issue of the paper varies from eight to sixteen pages which are divided into four sections: News, Features, Editorials and Sports. Occasionally included is an In-Depth section in which the paper goes into detail about a particular topic that is of interest to the student body and faculty. Recurring stories include the Roving Reporter, Editor's Slant, and Artist of the Issue. Sports regulars include a sports wrap-up for both Varsity and JV sports and an Athlete of the Issue report. The newspaper's last issue of the year, the Senior issue, focuses on members of the graduating class and their accomplishments and plans for the future.