This semester at Albert Lea High School the athletic department has partnered with publications. This partnership has resulted in the creation of two new publications offered at ALHS. These new publications are live streaming production and photojournalism.

Tiger Beat is a brand-new publications program at Albert Lea High School. It officially began the second semester of this school year with a small group of students. Tiger Beat is made up of three students Junior Ahtziri Resendiz, Senior Chaise Harmdierks and Sophomore Lillian Benschoter. Tiger Beat is advised by Angie Zoller Barker who also advises Tiger Vision Broadcast News and the Ahlahasa Newspaper at ALHS. 

“Tiger Beat is essentially photojournalism,” said Zoller Barker. “Their job is to go out and cover all of the sports and activities in the building”. 

Tiger Beat is purely photography based and the goal will be for journalism students to attend every home sporting event and school activity. This will include everything from Robotics to choir concerts to Mock Trial.

Tiger Beat and Albert Lea live publications were the idea of our Athletic director, Dave Langerud. Langerud stated that this program’s goal is that students become more engaged and involved in our community. 

They also wanted to provide students with the opportunity to practice classroom knowledge in real world situations while showcasing our activities on live streams and media platforms. By doing this they hope to create a strong sense of community within our town and school.“By involving students in the production and broadcasting of events, the school seeks to develop their leadership skills and provide practical experience in media-related fields,” said Langerud. “With the help of Angie Zoller Barker and Erin Brackey, we are actively building and expanding these programs to ensure their long term success.”

After they take the photos they take their pictures and edit them on their own they create online posts for social media, the Albert Lea athletics website and Albert Lea Live. Their online posts are on the school’s social media and the TVs inside the school. Their photos also have the ability to be used in The Albert Lea Tribune, KAAL and KIMT news. You can find their photos on albertleaathletics.com. 

Another publications program that is being tested out at Albert Lea High School is Albert Lea Live. Albert Lea Live provides a live stream for most school sports and activities. They also cover band, choir and orchestra concerts. 

“Since COVID, the idea of being able to do things remotely like the live stream is just an expectation,” said Zoller Barker. “Schools are sort of moving towards this idea that you have to provide a live stream”.

Tiger Vision is partnering with Albert Lea Live so that the school can provide a livestream while teaching students how to use the camera and equipment. 

“Step one is introducing it to the students and showing them what it looks like to run the production,” said Zoller Barker. “This includes being a cameraman at the game, running the live steam program and then later editing the highlight videos that we’ve been having on Tiger Vision this semester”.

For now, students are learning the skills behind-the-scenes. Eventually, the goal will be for students to also become the voice of the live stream by doing play-by-play and color commentary.

“The goal would ultimately be to have it be student run,” said Zoller Barker. “They want it to just be the kids doing the commentary and they want students running computer production.”

With both Tiger Beat and Albert Lea Live, students are getting paid as district employees to go out and get coverage for the community. This creates a great opportunity for Albert Lea students to make money while developing skills for journalism.

“I think the families really appreciate the pictures because we get pictures of their kids doing the sports they love,” Said Resendiz. “I think the pictures capture memories for both the teams and their families.”

The students who have been involved in Albert Lea Live and Tiger Beat have been testing out the new programs within existing Publications. Next year, Tiger Beat is going to be its own class advised by Erin Brackey, current adviser to the Tiger Yearbook and IMag literary magazine. Students will use photojournalism to take pictures, distribute pictures and share them with the other publications here at ALHS like Ahlahasa and yearbook. The ultimate goal of Tiger Beat is that the photos can be edited and uploaded to the website while the game was happening or the same night as the event.

“When we go to take pictures it’s usually just me by myself,” said Resendiz. ”I try to get angles and just different shots, and I try to get as many people as I can, so it’s not just focusing on one person. Because this is focused more on the sport than just one individual person”. 

Both of these publications are positively impacting our community. 

These publications are making people interested and excited about what’s going on at ALHS, they capture memories,  and they allow the community to have coverage of these events.