Tee Brigitte, Tee Clotilde, and the School Newspaper

Every school must have a newspaper. This is deemed one of those standard features of a high school. Typically, its content is approved by a faculty advisor who ensures that nothing too frank or troublesome to the administration and school board is published. Actually, it is part of the Journalism elective that some students may take and learn real-life journalism skills like slanting the news as the real newspapers do.

Is so happens that Tee Brigitte and Tee Clotilde were editors as seniors; and they mostly made for a very conservative, untroublesome pair of editors for The Weekly Bayou. The faculty advisor was lulled into a torpor of security due to nothing ever written seemly not amiss to good order and civility. That's the way principals and faculty advisors like it, you bet!

As for the paper itself, it was received by the students as a little on the boring side. Students scanned each issue to see if they were mentioned, to read the lame jokes, and to find out the school menu for the following week so they knew whether to eat in or to bag their lunches. The advisor even allowed reporters to wear fedoras in the newsroom with press cards in the hat bands, just like real reporters!

A month before the term ended, les jeune filles put in some hidden surprises. 

A schedule note declared that April Fools's Day was declared an official holiday; and classes would not be held that day. 

An exposé mentioned the Mr. Comeaux, the Assistant Principal, wore pink bikini panties. 

On another page, there was an article that the chemistry lab was designated a Superfund site. That was a teaching occasion, though. Many students first found out what a Superfund site was. As a further happening, the E.P.A. paid the school an on-site inspection to write a report that, as usual, no one would read before it gets filed.

Some eyebrows in the adult community shot up when there was an unconfirmed report that Bayou Teche High School would not play football in Fall, 2017. A frisson of fear transpired: Now what would people do on Friday nights in the Fall? All there is is beer, sex and television.

But an editorial packed quite a wallop. It argued that School Board members should be given intelligence tests and the results be reported by The Weekly Bayou, the Times-Picyaune, the Lafayette Advertiser, and the Baton Rouge Advocate.

With the last deed, that was going too far. Some people, however, thought that the girls had some inside information and demanded that a full disclosure should be made. There's something to be said for journalistic transparency! And for elected school boards.

[I originally wrote this, but filed it away as being too improbable. However, there was a recent report in the Washington Post that some high school student journalists in Kansas looked into the qualifications of an incoming principal for their school. They found her to have gotten diplomas from a diploma mill and other things that were overlooked when she was hired! Sometimes people overlook the obvious.]