In a classroom where the walls are covered with newspaper pages and student awards, a dozen teenagers sat in a circle the day after the general election, discussing stories for an upcoming issue of their student news magazine. They talked about budget cuts, fashion, a feature on their principal’s penchant for blue suits. It’s the kind of meeting that happens every month in countless high schools, but the students who produce the InvestiGator at Green Valley High School in Henderson, Nevada, are different because they recently lost their adviser, Eric Johnston, who died in July at age 48.
Johnston was beloved by his students and colleagues. A workaholic devoted to the InvestiGator, he seldom missed a day of school and often stayed up until at least 11:30 p.m.
, tinkering with yearbook pages and checking the newspaper. The students who put together the newspaper now have a new adviser: Nicole Cvetnich, who is in her first year at the school. Since Johnston’s death, she and his students have carried on his legacy, telling stories that matter to their school community.
During the recent meeting, students reminisced about Johnston, sometimes speaking of him in the present tense. They recalled his wit and sarcasm, his apparent ability to know everything about everyone, the way he taught his students to figure out what was newsworthy and what wasn’t by shooting down some story ideas. “He pushes us beyond the limit that we think we can’t pass and he never has doubt in what.
