TV is memorial to students

Positioned on a cafeteria wall along the busiest corridor at Lakeside High School hang two plaques flanking a 50-inch plasma television.

Bekki Matthews, the school's media specialist, says that knowing the two young men it memorializes, it quickly makes sense why the memorial fits.

When Lakeside High School started receiving checks in the mail directed to "media" after the 2005 deaths of Imran Khan and Tariq Fischer, Matthews said, she tried to think of a unique way to use the money for the benefit of the entire student body that would mesh with her former students' passion for school activities.

Khan and Fischer, Matthews said, were ever-present at school sports and events and displayed an enthusiastic school spirit that rubbed off on others.

Matthews teamed with the school's athletic director, Randy Hill, who said he had seen other schools in the state stimulate student involvement and attendance at sporting events and club activities by showing calendars of events, student news and highlights from student activities the day before on televisions in conspicuous places.

Both students were interested in media and both were active in the student body and "this was a way to tie both of those (aspects) in," Matthews said.

"Even though this is a large school, a lot of people knew these kids," Hill said. "They were really good boys."

In addition to the "media" checks, largely donations from friends and family of the two students, Hill said he used ticket sales from some sports to help pay for the additional cost.

In mid-February, Matthews had the screen installed so that during lunch, Lakeside students can eat and catch up on what they missed from the day before.

For now, the programming is limited to a few school sports that happened out of town, highlights of last season's football games and some student announcements, but Matthews said her goal is to show clips from chorus and band performances, plays and from the Miss LHS pageant.

"It's to improve school spirit, to get them involved (and) to attract (students) so that maybe they'll want to come next time," Matthews said.

The television is controlled by computer through the media center and only school-based content is provided, Matthews said. She said she also envisioned the screen could be used during student assemblies and to broadcast live footage of basketball and other events inside the gymnasium.

Several students eating lunch recently said the programming was limited, but they were looking forward to the school showing more diverse offerings of school events in the future.

Senior Lyndsay Colsh said she liked seeing the senior projects of fellow pupils and felt the school should highlight more students' academic work, chorus productions and drama.