Reviving the Jamaica High School Hilltopper Newspaper

Jamaica High School located in south Queens, New York

We all have special times and moments that have helped define the decade that 'was' for us. Here's the first of mine.

Jamaica High School was established in 1892 in Queens New York. Its alumni include Francis Ford Coppola of Godfather fame and Art Buchwald the humorist and cartoonist journalist.

Its journalism department was perhaps the best of any U. S. High School. And its' student newspaper, The Hilltopper, garnered more prestigious Columbia University Scholastic Press annual awards for excellence in journalism than any other school in the country. To graduate from JHS as a member of the Hilltopper staff guaranteed admission to any Ivy League School.

What an honor to be invited in September 2002 to join the English Department as an instructor of ESL, English and Faculty Advisor to the Newspaper. The AP English made sure that reviving his baby, The Hilltopper, was a priority for me. You see the paper had not been published for three years.

I felt it was payback time for me and I shared with the students my passion for fine writing and meeting deadlines which I learned while publishing Brooklyn's Community Magazine.. This meant for me meeting editors at 7:30 AM and staying often to 6:30 PM. It meant energizing and pushing the sometime lazy students to their limits.

Together, we got the job done. We were able to publish two issues!

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