The fifty-year-old Pioneer meets the 21st century with its first online edition. Moving the publication online to a WordPress FLEX site is new territory for the pioneering staff as they move to respond to the modern demands of news consumers at Walsh Jesuit.

Stories will be constantly updated and, therefore, current. In addition, the online format adds new opportunities to provide multimedia content. Videos, polls and podcasts are now available for students and faculty to view and interact with. Dawn Rice, a senior, stated, “I’m excited for The Pioneer to be online because now I can access information whenever I want.” This was not the case until now as the publication was previously distributed quarterly.

The Pioneer was published for exactly 50 years as a print publication. In its earlier days, articles were composed on a typewriter, cut and pasted onto an 11 by 17-inch sheet of paper, divided into four columns and then shipped to a printer in Cleveland.

Assistant Principal Mrs. Jane Rafferty, once the moderator of The Pioneer, was quite familiar with the lengthy process. She noted, “If there was a mistake, you would have to white it out and fix it.” The “galleys” were sent to be printed then returned to the school and distributed. This laborious procedure was used for decades.

Later in its history, the articles were typed into a computer and then put on a disc which was sent to the publishers. Sometimes the disc had to be driven to the publishing site because of an urgent deadline. This process resulted in fewer editions a year and articles that were out of date. Nevertheless, developing technology throughout the years has improved how The Pioneer is produced and its capacity to provide timely, informative pieces.

The current staff of 27 students eagerly embraces the latest era of the paper. Staff writers and editors are ready to be a part of the paper and to inform the community what is going on at WJ and beyond. Meghan Stibrick, a staff writer, declared, “I’m excited to be a part of The Pioneer because I like how the technology that we are using is improving what we create and share.”

The current moderator of the paper, Mr. Joe Adair, has spent many hours preparing to introduce the online Pioneer. “I believe that we are living in an increasingly digital age and our school community expects to find something like The Pioneer online as a student news site. It’s both exciting and overwhelming to consider what we can do here! We’re going to take this one step at a time and discern how to best steer the program in the coming years.”

There will be more timely reporting on events, and the paper will be available worldwide for alumni and everyone who wants to read it. The Pioneer being online revolutionizes the range of formats and the depth to which issues can be explored. There is still more room to grow and add innovative features to the website.