Electronic graudation section

Sometimes I actually do a little bit of work around here.
Last week was one of those times as I once again tackled the graduation section found in today’s paper. For months – looking ahead to this section – I set aside all the scholarships and tid-bits of news about this year’s graduates’ future plans. I interviewed a few students, took their pictures and wrote up their stories.
On slow days I gathered up the university news releases and scanned the paper clipped pictures into our computer system and scanned or keyed in text.
I tried to be prepared for the final week of laying out the graduation section. I know what is ahead. The first year we published all of Union County’s schools in one section it terrified me that I would not meet the deadline. Last year I worked scared. This year I was … extremely anxious.
The problem with graduation is that the bulk of the information that I need, by necessity, has to come at the last minute. Most schools know their honor graduates, but the difference between valedictorian and salutatorian can sometimes hang by a fraction of a point.
This year, I got a break. Most Union County schools have entered the electronic age and have digital cameras, e-mail access and CD burners.
I love it! Thank you guidance counselors, typists, local computer geeks … Thank you every one who sent us information and pictures – no matter what the format – but a double thank you if you sent it electronically. The CDs with pictures cut out a step or two for the production department. The electronic format for text saved me a lot of typing of names with all those capital letters.
I just do not like to type lists of names with all those capital letters – my fingers tend to splay off to the side and make a lot of mistakes. Graduation involves a lot of names with capital letters: Colleges, schools, scholarships and students’ names.
Compared to my first year here at the News-Times, when I had to key in every single one of the neatly typed pages of honor rolls into the computer, we have come a long ways. Back then, I was first reading the names of some of the class of 2005 on kindergarten or first grade honor rolls. I am sure their parents were as proud then as they are now. But after totaling up six straight hours of re-typing all the names of the El Dorado honor roll students and another four or five hours for the rest of the county, I began lobbying for a scanner which would read and translate hard copy into digitized text. We are now on our third or fourth scanner, But we have learned that we cut out the possibility of scanning errors with the direct infusion of electronic information via e-mail over the Internet.
Since most schools have recently added e-mail access, I am not shy about suggesting that those responsible for gathering up and typing school news and honor rolls, copy, cut and paste it into the text of an e-mail or send it to us as an attachment. As I said, I don’t like to type capital letters.
It’s amazing how far we have come. When this year’s graduates entered kindergarten I had never heard of e-mail. A year or so later, my son began advocating that we add it to our home computer so he could contact me from college. Now I check four e-mail accounts nearly every day.
Now that the graduation section is done, that’s where I hope to find the 2005 spring semester honor rolls and merit lists. I sure would not want to have to any more than I absolutely have to do around here.