Red ‘n’ Green evolves throughout years

The December issue from 1963. From the 1930s through the mid 60s, The Red ‘n’ Green was printed on 8.5×11″ paper and stapled in the corner.

Camdyn Rohde, Reporter

The student newspaper was called The Peptomist from 1924 to 1928 when its name was changed to The Red ‘n’ Green. This is an issue from 1926.

From sending single sentences back and forth to the Berlin Journal, to gluing articles onto paper with no preconceived knowledge of if they will all fit or not. That was what writing for The Red ‘n’ Green was like well into the 1980s. 

It is no surprise that like most things, change comes with time and this is no different for The Red ‘n’ Green. Many teachers at BHS have been part of the staff throughout the years including English teacher Amy Wenig. Wenig was part of the staff when there were only typewriters, and things were much different. 

“We had to type up a copy, send it to the Berlin Journal, and then they would put it in newsprint form and send it back to us. If we had corrections we would have to type up that line, send it to them, and they would send it back to us again. You literally had to cut it and glue it over the original,” Wenig said. 

A Red ‘n’ Green newspaper cover from 2001.

Not only did The Red ‘n’ Green make a big switch from typewriters to computers in the late 80s, but they also ditched their newspaper style in the 2001-2002 school year. Physical education teacher and athletic director Joe Stellmacher was part of the staff at the time. 

“When we started it was a very different format. It was almost like a book. It was like a magazine-type print and that was the style that we wrote,” Stellmacher said. 

The Red ‘n’ Green switched the format back to the traditional newspaper style in the fall of 2006, and another major format change has now taken place 14 years later. The Red ‘n’ Green made the decision to transition to an online paper full time.  

“We are going online to serve our readers better. Students in the 21st century expect quicker access to information and more frequently updated information. Additionally, last spring was really hard on everybody,” Adviser Shannon Kuehmichel said. 

Before the transition to an online paper, physical education teacher Jeremy Mercer and his peers had very similar steps when they were on staff as the Red ‘n’ Green does today. 

“We sat down together every month and basically would brainstorm as an entire group on all the things we wanted to get out for the next issue. Then we would more or less break down and kind of divvy up who did what based on our own interests,” Mercer said. 

Despite every change The Red ‘n’ Green has gone through, the experience of being on the staff left each past member with the same takeaway.

“I’m very grateful. I myself never ended up doing anything with it post-high school, but I had a lot of fun. You learn a lot about the whole process of writing, publishing and those things and being part of it is something I would totally steer someone towards,” Mercer said.