SCRAP: The Untold Story by Jim Maddox

In 1969 a group of students got together and decided to change the Polaris, our school newspaper.

We decided to report on what was happening out in the real world as well as what was going on within our classroom walls. Students would write opinion columns, and we hoped to encourage ideas from across the spectrum. Our school paper was going to be different, and we were going to raise some eyebrows.

A lot of our classmates hated our effort. We were critical of the war and the school. It fit the pattern of the times; whenever people actually exercised their rights as Americans, they often would find themselves reviled and labeled un-American, or even worse as Communists.

We were neither. We were people trying to think and to find a voice. We tried to represent the feelings of our generation, pure and simple.

The administration did not appreciate our efforts. Just as our third edition was being put together we were assembled and told that we must change our way of doing things or resign.

There were no options, no room for compromise. One of the things that offended the administration the most was my use of the word buxom in a story I was writing about our field trip to The Courier Post. How silly it all seems today, but then again we couldn't wear jeans to school, could we?

In the end Jack Wiler, Gary Lundquist, Bruce Zahn, Mike Smith, myself and several others decided it wasn't worth the hassle, so we all resigned, and The Polaris became another same old same old high school newspaper.

The story didn't end there. Bruce and I decided that we had to strike back, that we must exercise our constitutional right to free speech, so our idea for an underground publication began to take shape.

We would call ourselves SCRAP- Student Committee Rebelling Against Policies, or something to that effect. Our paper was going to be a political/ Laugh-In type of paper, with opinions and topical humor.

Things like: If Jesus was alive today he'd probably puke. You know, real hard-hitting stuff. We were also going to solicit articles from members of the student body, and create a forum for everyone's ideas, anonymously of course.

We wrote and wrote, and our enthusiasm knew no bounds. We showed some examples to people we thought could be trusted, and debated over how to get this thing printed and how to get it circulated.

By the time we got anywhere near publishing the thing it was almost time to graduate, so the point was moot and SCRAP was dead; the revolution was over.

So there you have it, the almost underground, secret political/revolutionary guerilla newspaper that never was.

SCRAP was scrapped.