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Intent on creating their own school newspaper, 22 fifth-grade students from Tommie Barfield Elementary School had a first-hand taste of the industry during a recent field trip to the Marco Eagle.

QUENTIN ROUX / Eagle staff

Fifth-grade student Jacob Olguin displays a front page mock-up of the Marco Eagle commemorating a field trip to the newspaper’s offices.

“I think it involves a lot of work and responsibility ... being accurate and getting it done on time,” student Jessica Andrade said afterwards.

Andrade said the highlight of the visit — which included a tour to the newsroom, the advertising department and the creative services department — was watching Presentation Editor Nadine Ouillette create a front page mock-up just for the students.

It consisted of a group shot of the class, as well as headlines and “teasers” suggested by the children themselves.

Morgan Burke will be one of the photographers on the planned fifth grade publication, which will be called TBE Talk.

QUENTIN ROUX / Eagle staff

Visiting Tommie Barfield Elementary School fifth-grade students, with volunteers and their teacher Pam Baldwin, rear right, take time out for a picture during their field trip to the Marco Eagle.

Burke, too, particularly liked the creation of the pretend front page, and also commented on the amount of work it takes simply to come up with one page, let alone dozens.

Class teacher Pam Baldwin said the student publication will likely appear three times a year.

“I taught fifth grade in Virginia, and my class published a newspaper, so I asked this class if they were interested in publishing one,” she said. “They were, and the next logical step was to pay a visit to a newspaper office to see exactly what goes into publishing.”

QUENTIN ROUX / Eagle staff

Students react as Marco Eagle Presentation Editor Nadine Ouillette shows them how pages are put together electronically.

Baldwin said the eager class had at first wanted to publish TBE Talk every month, but that after the visit to the Eagle they realized the magnitude of the task.

She added that the class had been abuzz about the Eagle visit and the school paper for the past couple of days, and had already nailed down sections such as Out and About, Trivia Corner, an advice column for children and a cartoon strip.

The paper, Baldwin explained, will likely be published online as well and linked to a classroom Web site that Baldwin is at the moment creating for her students.

She said school principal Jory Westberry was highly supportive of the initiative and had personally secured funding for the field trip to the Eagle.