Junior journalists do 'Kid News'

BOUNTIFUL — School won't start for at least 45 minutes, and yet a dozen students scramble throughout Boulton Elementary School's library.

Some of them are rearranging set pieces. Others are securing wiring.

Two bright-eyed students are sitting behind a table with a large microphone resting between them.

On this day, fourth-grader McKenzie Wood and sixth-grader Liesl Roberts will transform into informative news anchors for this week's taping of "Kid Witness News."

"I like editing and (being) anchor — because you get to be the star," McKenzie said. "Weather's kind of fun, too, because then you get to come up with the feature state and tell about it."

McKenzie is one of 12 Boulton Elementary Schoolwide Enrichment Model journalism students who stars in different roles during the school's weekly news broadcast.

"It's a lot of hard work, but it's a lot of fun," she said.

Each Wednesday at 8 a.m. the SEM students gear up for another broadcast by running through their stories and announcements.

White dry erase boards filled with word cues sit across from the news anchors while two small cameras sit ready to record reporters. Several students wait in the wings for their camera cues.

At 8:55 a.m. the students go live, broadcasting to the entire school via television sets in each classroom.

The 10-15 minute broadcasts are filled with segments on everything from school announcements to student spotlights and various feature stories.

"It's a lot of running around . . . it gets kind of chaotic, but it's a lot of fun," said Cheryl Wood, Boulton Elementary School SEM instructor.

Wood came up with the idea for KWN along with parent-volunteer Carol Richardson. Richardson wrote a grant to Panasonic two years ago and got $10,000 worth of editing and camera equipment for the school.

Rather than limit the amount of students who could benefit from the equipment, Wood and Richardson formulated a way to get the entire school involved. Although KWN is mostly run by the core group of 12 journalism students, other students are featured in the programming through student spotlights, special segments, guest appearances and more.

Since that initial Panasonic grant, Boulton principal Julie Larsen has invested about an additional $5,000 into computers and cameras for the program.

KWN has been on the air since October 2005.