Macon County Junior High had not had a school newspaper until last school year (to our knowledge or at least in recent years.) In the 2018-19 school year, the yearbook staff had a lot of students in their class, so it made it hard to keep everyone busy. 8th grade teacher and yearbook adviser, Ms. Amber Claywell, decided to start an online school newspaper along with continuing the yearbook.

Ms. Claywell said, “I thought this would give all students a voice about the things that are important or interesting to them. It’s a safe place where students can share their opinions, common interests, and creative content. If they have no interest in writing an article for the paper, they can at least see what their friends and classmates are writing. We try to keep things positive, fun, and uplifting because we see enough negativity everywhere else we look.”

Ms. Claywell divided her yearbook staff into two groups: half in newspaper, half in yearbook. They started working hard, and got the newspaper up and running.

Howver, you can’t have a newspaper without a name. Thanks to Colton Parrish the newspaper finally found its identity… “Tiger Talk.”    

Ms. Claywell asked her students for ideas, and after she eliminated nominations and compiled a list of the top names, the yearbook/newspaper class voted. Colton’s name won by a landslide.

Colton said he was unsure of what truly inspired the name. He did add, “We are the Macon County Tigers and we are writing about our school and talking about the things we are interested in.”

He’s right. Tiger Talk fits it perfectly!