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By Sarah Baylus
By Sarah Baylus
Little was stranger than the sight of seven miniature blue people swarming around the Viewpoints newsroom on Sept. 20.
Well, to be accurate, there were six miniature blue people and their slightly larger, tan-clad leader. They exclaimed excitedly, were dazzled by the editor-in-chief’s fancy cell phone, and by the end of the night they were on the front page of the newspaper.
Riverside housing community Orange Crest’s Pack 917 included a visit to Riverside City College’s newspaper as one of its stopping points on its quest toward earning “communicator” achievement pins. For most of the scouts, the “communicator” will mark the seventh of 20 pins toward graduation to official Boy Scouthood, the next plateau of achievement after Cub Scouts.
But one simple newspaper visit isn’t all it takes to earn the pin. The scouts must complete seven tasks in the area of communication to reach their goal. Some of the tasks are simple, like sending an email. Others are as complex as inventing a secret code.
RCC attendee Terri Sandoval selected RCC for the visit as part of her duties as a scout mom.
The scouts learned about print and electronic methods of communication in the context of a college newspaper, as taught by members of the Viewpoints staff.
Among the talks of journalistic integrity, modes of media and methods of reporting the news, for Aaron Stewart the highlight of the event was obvious: “Free cookies and punch!”
But even the cookie-hungriest scout couldn’t hide his excitement at the finale of the presentation, when staff members imported a photo taken earlier in the evening onto a sample front page of the paper and printed a copy for each boy.
“Mom, save this and put it on the fridge!” exclaimed one boy, passing off the souvenir to his grinning mother.
“Cub Scouts is a great opportunity for our boys to try new things,” Sandoval said.
