Get Your Hands on Westfield Hi's Eye 80th Anniversary Edition

Westfield, NJ -- Eighty years may have passed but many of the same issues are still being covered in Hi’s Eye.

The Westfield High School newspaper celebrated its 80th anniversary in December by creating a special edition on the history of the publication. This issue is now available for residents, students and the public to purchase.

To take a look back at the evolution of the newspaper,students in Nicole Scimone’s Journalism period 5 and period 8 classes were broken up into groups to cover a specific decade, dating back to the first Hi’s Eye issue published in 1935.

Issues such as sports, teen drinking and fashion trends were similar to things Westfield High School students still concentrated on today.

Julia Mazzucco, worked on the 1980s era, wrote an article about parking struggles at the high school -- which is still a problem today.

Nikki Eisenberg, worked on the 1970s era and looked at the school’s State Football Championships. Just this past year the Westfield football team once again took home the title. Eric Storms interviewed the coach on this, which ended up being the newspapers top selling issue.

There were similarities but there were some shocking differences.

Emmy Liederman, who worked on the 1960s era, wrote an article about how body image was perceived then and now.

“There was an article about tips from seniors at the high school on how to take care of your body image and diet tips,” Liederman said. “It gave the wrong ideas of what dieting was about. They told students to survive off just cigarettes, which was kind of shocking.”

Rebecca Smoot noted the evolution in how students receive the news.

“It’s incredibly different with our Twitter account and Instagram account that people can access in the morning,” Smoot said. “In the past, everything students needed to know they needed to look to Hi’s Eye in print.”

No matter how they are accessing the news, students at Westfield High are still reading Hi’s Eye.

The self-funded newspaper relies mostly on subscriptions. There are sbout 250 people subscribed through the school and 100 through home delivery (for the public and alumni).

A survey of students in the school found that 900 students read the newspapaper, which was about 51 percent of the school.

“The stories, school buildings, clubs may have changed, but one thing has stayed the same in all the years and that is Hi’s Eye,” Scimone said. “Their views and articles about issues that people care about or need to care about are here in the newspaper. It’s kind of an amazing thing to be apart of. We have an impact on future generations because of what they read in these pages.”

To order a copy of the Hi’s Eye special 80th anniverary issue fill out this form: tinyurl.com/HisEye80

Here is a list of all of the Period 5 students who worked on the issue and the topic they wrote about:

• Nikki Eisenberg- 70s State Football Championships
• Olivia Hamilton - Columbine tragedy's impact on our community
• Will Harmer- civil rights/race in the 60s
• Jacob Kaplan- 90s trends
• Emmy Liederman- body image and dieting in the 60s
• Julia Mazzucco- WHS parking struggles- 80s to today
• Hannah Prieto- teen drinking- 80s and today
• Kate Seaman- Title IX and the birth of WHS girls varsity sports
• Kyle Shirk- 80s College application trends: Rutgers vs private colleges farther from home
• Rebecca Smoot- 90s music trends
• Eric Storms- the advent of the weighted GPA for honors courses at WHS: from its beginning in the 80s to today
• Morgan Sturdevant- the "darker side" of Westfield, connecting John List to the Watcher.

Period 8 and their stories:

• Stella Billek: editorial discussing the anniversary issue project and our goals
• Zoe Rader: the changes in the journalism program from 1935 to today
• Hailey Nettler: WHS glee club in the 1930s
• Sarah Slavin and Justin Dudzinski: a hate graffiti incident in the 1990s
• Ben Halevy and Haley Farella: the 40s tradition of junior prom
• Sam Della Fera: a commentary questioning cultural nostalgia for the 50s
• Claire Brennan: Fashion trends blurring gender lines from the 50s to today
• Ethan Finver: the current school building's opening in the 1950s

(Photo by Alexis Tarrazi: Westfield High School's Period 5 Journalism Class wrote articles to celebrate Hi's Eye 80th Anniversary).