After a wildfire Destroyed a California high school’s newsroom, damaging its cameras, computers, and archives covering six decades, one of the initial offers of assistance for its journalism advisor originated from across the nation.
Claire Smith, who founded Temple University’s sports media center, has been acquainted with Lisa Nehus Saxon for over four decades. Their friendship began when they worked together to establish a space for female reporters in Major League Baseball. Over those many years, they have stood beside one another during times when they were excluded from locker rooms, and today, despite most of these restrictions having eased, their bond remains strong. The Palisades Charter High School was damaged. , Smith wished to be present for her friend once more.
“I just thought, ‘What can we do? How can we help with healing?’” Smith said.
Earlier this week, she traveled from Philadelphia to deliver the result of that offer: a university paper featuring the high school students’ articles.
Over approximately a dozen pages, the insert featured pieces about price exploitation in the rental sector following the wildfire and schools resuming classroom instruction. It included compelling personal stories from individuals who lost their possessions to the blaze. Additionally, there were verses and drawings created by pupils at Pasadena Rosebud Academy, an educational institution for transitional kindergarteners through 8th graders located in Altadena, California, which was devastated by the fire.
Wildfires in January ravaged the Los Angeles area, wiping out nearly 17,000 structures including homes, schools, businesses and places of worship.
The Palisades high school, made up of about 3,000 students in Los Angeles, saw about 40% of its campus damaged and had to move temporarily into an old Sears building. Nehus Saxon estimated that around a quarter of its newspaper staff members lost their homes, with some forced to move out of the community and switch schools.
This project, she and Smith said, was a way to give students a project to focus on after the tragedy while also providing them a place to tell a larger audience the experience of their community.
Smith mentioned that she believed the project would be therapeutic for the students "but also provide them with something tangible they can keep and, as they mature, present to their offspring and grandchildren."
On Wednesday, inside a basement classroom in Santa Monica, Smith and Samuel O'Neal, who serves as the editor-in-chief of The Temple News, distributed the documents to the high school team.
It was the first time they had laid eyes on their Tideline articles in print form because the publication had shifted to an online format several years back owing to expenses.
Kate Swain, an 18-year-old co-editor-in-chief of the publication, mentioned that flipping through the printed pages at last felt rather dreamlike.
Given all that we've experienced collectively, every challenge we've overcome, and each person handling their own private issues," she stated. "Still, at the same time, we have dedicated countless hours, effort, and our utmost journalistic enthusiasm to crafting these stories.
Gigi Appelbaum, an 18-year-old co-editor-in-chief of the newspaper who lost her home in the fire, mentioned that this initiative felt particularly significant as it brought together individuals from places thousands of miles apart.
"The reality that individuals nationwide are conscious of our circumstances and empathize with our position, wanting to amplify our message, is truly remarkable," stated Appelbaum, who has been contributing to the publication for four years.
Among the items destroyed in the blaze was a container holding significant cards and letters. She mentioned her intention to keep duplicates in a fresh box as she endeavors to rebuild her collection.
In 1983, during a match between the Angels and Yankees in Anaheim, California, Smith and Nehus Saxon crossed paths. According to Nehus Saxon, she approached Smith only to find her rushing to meet a deadline.
"Who could have guessed that small introduction would grow into all of this," remarked Nehus Saxon.
In the years since, they’ve traveled to London together for Major League Baseball’s first games in Europe, and they cried together in 2017 as Smith became the first woman to win the Baseball Writers’ Association of America’s Career Excellence Award.
“We don’t talk every week,” Nehus Saxon said. “Sometimes we can go, you know, months and months without talking. But all we have to do is send each other a text message and we know the other will be there immediately.”
The connection between them became even stronger when Nehus Saxon received word from Smith during the inferno that consumed her neighborhood. Her house was just three blocks away from the school. Although it managed to withstand the flames, it is now contaminated with lead-laden soot and might remain uninhabitable for several years.
However, thanks to Smith’s assistance, she and her students managed to progress and complete the ultimate version of the school yearbook. Once the copies were distributed, Nehus Saxon retained one for the school’s archives.
"When you've lost everything, you have to begin anew," Smith stated.
Hallie Golden from The Associated Press
