In June 2008, co-founder and friend Bill Dow proposed an idea to me: an online newspaper where teenagers could post articles and discuss ideas with their peers. The website would serve as an alternative to (or even competitor of) the school newspaper, which at that point in time required that students take journalism in order to have their article featured. It took Bill a couple days to convince me, but I spent the next two weeks coding the website. After a bit of discussion, we settled on The Plateau Times for the name.
I still remember the morning we launched the site on July 11. The site does not have any mechanism to rearrange articles, so we had to manipulate the posting times in order to make the front page appear exactly as we wanted it. As the site matured, we added a comment system to allow anybody to speak their mind.
Over one hundred articles have been written for The Plateau Times by various users. I would like to take just a moment to highlight some of the best pieces.
- Calling Dignity: A Social Experiment Conducted by Alex Hanson by Bill Dow
- Dante Survives Nine Levels of Bellevue Square for 3G iPhone by Sam Pitasky
- My Job Sucks: Sandwich Artist Gives Food For Thought by Alex Hanson
- Save Fuel, Get a Footlong: Lestz Make A Deal by Jeff Lestz
- Challenger Elementary’s 5th Grade Predictions: Then and Now by Bill Dow
- My Job Sucks: $9.50 to Read this Article by Jeff Lestz
- The Irrelevance of the Food Handlers’ Permit Class by Garrett Black
- Dishonorable Mention: How NHS Falls Short of its Charter by Alex Hanson
- Protection With Ignorance: A Glimpse Into a Woman’s Morocco by Audrey Harker
- I Miss You, Issaquah: An Outgoing Senior’s Take on the Big Move by Chris Best
- Skyline’s Picasso: The Full Story of “Father” Daniel Ramirez by Rogers Feng
- Physics Under Fire: The Fight for Fowler by Jeff Lestz
- Environmental Friendliness and Exercise Rolled in One: Biking to School by Rogers Feng
I want to thank everybody who was involved in this project, either writing articles or reading them. A special thanks to co-founder Bill Dow and regular writers Jeff Lestz and Rogers Feng for their efforts. I am proud to have been a part of this project, and I really hope you enjoyed the product of our efforts.
Comments
I, too, would like to thank not only the contributors of our site, but also the readers. Without you, it would have been nothing, and at our peak we had many loyal followers. We had our ups and our downs, our boring articles and those that incited extreme feelings, but many of you stuck with us. Thank you for reading, thank you for commenting and sharing your opinions, and most of all, thank you for being you. It was a roller coaster ride with a lot of early peaks and a long, drawn-out end, and we thank you for sharing that bench seat with us.