 The Cougar Chronicle's normal Page 1 logo is at the top, and the May "Senior Coloring Issue" version is at the bottom in the photo above. For the May issue, students were invited to color in blank spaces (including those in the logo) throughout the 16 pages, using a box of crayons that the staff taped to each of its roughly 1,500 copies. Westside Pioneer photo
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So they did the next best thing. They printed the paper using the less expensive black and white ink, but taped a small crayon box to each of the roughly 1,500 copies.
Adding to the fun, the Chronicle created color-able areas on nearly all its 16 pages, including the logo on the top of Page 1 - usually a dark grey but left this time with just a black outline.
Each crayon box has three colors: yellow, red and blue. Appropriately, the first two are the Coronado school colors.
According to co-editor in chief Rioux Jordan, the plan began when he and co-editor in chief Megan Wood were talking about the funding situation. “It was Megan's idea,” Jordan said. “We were joking at first.”
The idea crystallized when Texas Roadhouse, a restaurant that keeps such crayon boxes in stock (and employs Chronicle business manager Kevin Kennedy), agreed to donate half of the total. The Chronicle, which funds itself almost entirely with advertising, paid for the rest of the crayon boxes at a cost of $67, Jordan said.
It would have cost $500 more to print in color. Going with a “senior coloring issue” - as it's described under the logo - made the final newspaper's printing affordable and also left some funds for the year's-end banquet May 14, he said.
In other Chronicle news... The school newspaper recently was honored with individual first-place awards for entries mailed in for judging in the annual Colorado High School Press Association competition: Wood and off-the-campus editor Justin Hays won for Commentary Writing, and Jordan for Breaking News Story.
Westside Pioneer article