I took my first journalism course in high school. The
fellow who taught it left after two years and opened
a hardware store in LA. I think I was the only person
he taught who went on to work as a journalist.
We learned the basics of story writing - who, what,
when, where - and then learned how to write a lead.
One day, the teacher wrote something like this on the
board:
Mr. Charles Fenwick, principal of the Broadmoor High
School, and his staff will attend the regional
educator's conference in Wilmington on Thursday April
25th. Dr. Raymond White, state Secretary of
Education, will keynote the conference, which will
also feature an address by Dr. Marsha Newman, High
School teacher of the year.
He said, "Write the lead." We sat at our desks and
wrote, Dr. White to keynote educator's conference,
Fenwick to lead teachers on trip to Wilmington and so
on.
We turned them in. The teacher looked them over and
said "No. What's the point?
Your lead is, No School Thursday"
At that instant, I thought "What's the point? What a
wonderful question!"