Eighth grade students at Homer Middle School have launched a newspaper.

Homer Middle School Teacher Bonnie Jason’s seventh period exploratory class for eighth grade students last week published the first issue of Husky Tales and Trails.

The basic model for the paper is loosely based on the structure of the Homer News, with sections on school and local events, opinion, arts and culture, school sports, games and puzzles, a school calendar, advertisements and classifieds. The paper also includes an advice section: “Paw Pointers.”

The first edition of the paper was released to the students and staff on Sept. 14.

“The kids all brainstormed a name for the paper and one of the kids, Ayla, finally came up with the idea of ‘Tales and Trails,’” Jason said.

Jason said that in one of the final edits before the first issue, “Tales” got changed to “Tails.”

“But we will use ‘Tales’ in future editions,” she said.

Jason and students will brainstorm together what kinds of stories and other features can go into the paper. All eighth graders will have the opportunity to participate for a quarter of the school year.

“Before this first edition we studied the Homer News and the Anchorage Daily News to look at the kind of information that is included in journalism. We’re pretty much starting from scratch on this topic,” Jason said.