Ode to My High School Journalism Teacher

Mr. Walter Kaplan was my high school journalism teacher, and I credit him with actually teaching me something useful that I could use in the world.

My English classes were generally boring way back in my junior year in 1977. Even the literature classes. Oh, I aced them all, of course, but I was disappointed that they weren’t filled with interesting and insightful discussion as I hoped they might be, and usually I’d already read the assigned books years earlier at home. For fun. So, when it looked like I’d have to take composition for college prep, I couldn’t face it. The only other option was to take a journalism class and write for the school paper, The Olympian. So that’s what I did. Mind you, I was not on a creative writing track at the time. I was a theatre major and headed that way in college, only to turn around and pick up a commercial art major instead. Ha! Plot twist!

Little did I know that taking journalism would be an interesting step not only in furthering a writing career that I didn’t know I wanted, but I learned a thing or two from this spunky little fellow who taught our classes.

Mr. Kaplan loved his work. He loved teaching journalism. Loved working with kids. You felt it. He was a short man, not too much taller than me, but I remember seeing him striding purposefully across our school campus. Bearded, dark-eyed, there was a vital spark in him that was infectious. Even though I’ve never been a political animal, he talked about it, talked about listening to what was said, taught us to write unbiased pieces, and delighted in our successes.

In his obituary from 2003, I found out this about him: “Walt was born in Philadelphia, PA and served in WWII in the Italian Campaign, 3rd Division, earning a Purple Heart at the Battle of Anzio. He received undergraduate and graduate degrees from Stanford University in Journalism and History (’49, ’50). For 34 years Walt was a dedicated teacher and Advisor to The Olympian Newspaper at Leuzinger High School in Lawndale, CA. Walt served as the editor of the B’nai Brith Record and was beginning his 10th year as President of the Marina Del Rey B’nai Brith Lodge #3037. He was a recipient of the Maimonides Award in 1991 for outstanding and meritorious service and the B’nai Brith Southern California President’s Award in June 2003. Walt was a past Commander of Jewish War Veterans Friendship Post #617…”

I sat at his table when our local chapter of the Quill and Scroll society—the high school national organization for furthering education in journalism—held its award ceremony. I was news editor by then, but also cartoonist for the paper. I won the first ever cartoonist award given for editorial cartooning, and his excitement for my win probably exceeded my own.

I spent two years on The Olympian. I’m a little sorry I couldn’t afford at the time to buy one of those bound copies of all the papers for those two years…but maybe not. Perhaps the memory is better than the reality. I hope my writing has improved since then!

But working as editor also meant that I pasted up the front page. And since this is before computers you literally cut and pasted the typeset text and halftoned photos onto a board with hot wax, using a T-square to make sure they were all level and even. These were skills I used in my future graphic design career before computers came into being and took over the graphics industry, which was the impetus for me to switch to writing novels. So yes, those classes prepared me for TWO careers.

I wish Mr. Kaplan was still with us so I can thank him. After all, when the rejections started rolling in throughout those years I was trying to get published, and I began to wonder if anyone would ever pay for my words, I suddenly recalled my time at my high school journalism classes and the rules of being a journalist. I was reading articles in my local papers and began thinking, “I can do better than this,” and made the bold move of proclaiming myself available as a stringer for two local dailies, and four weeklies. I did that for eight years while I was a stay-at-home mom, sending out manuscript after manuscript, and hoping for that first contract. I honed my journalism skills, and I know it’s responsible for my being able to cut to the chase in my novels, getting to the point without dragging it out. After all, in a feature story, you only have so many column inches to get that story told. A beginning, a middle, and an end. Maybe that’s why so many of our favorite writers—Mark Twain, Charles Dickens, Ernest Hemmingway, Jack London, Edgar Allan Poe, to name but a few—started out as reporters. Or maybe they just wanted someone, anyone to pay for their words!

So thank you, Mr. Kaplan. Your energy and enthusiasm for your work rubbed off. It worked. You can be proud of that.