The issues Iowa high school students face

About 40 Iowa high school students I spoke with at an Iowa High School Press Associations conference on Wednesday, Oct. 13, came up with a basket load of story ideas for their schools' student newspapers.

The students in the session have the power to put stories like these in those papers. They write, photograph, edit and design the papers. It was a sharp group, coming up with these ideas in less than 10 minutes after being asked two questions:

 What are people talking about most at your school?

 What are the next big events coming up at your school?

Their ideas :

?  Hunting: Deer hunting

?  Construction at the school: excitement and disruption

?  Midterms coming up

?  Semester ending

?  State cross country; try for nationals

?  Best Buddies program

?  Drinking alcohol before sporting events

?  Football players' injuries

?  How far is too far when it comes to dressing for school

?  Fights at school

?  Healthy lunches program: comparing differences between schools

?  Halloween parties

?  Police use Facebook and MySpace “profiles” to bust parties

?  How much funding athletics gets, compared to how well they play (eewww: the team)

?  What happened to Sadie Hawkins dances?