<"i've never="" seen="" so="" many="" kids="" read="" the="" newspaper="" at="" our="" school,"="" senior="" jake="" reed="" said.="">
Reed and other students think the new-found interest in the newspaper is because of a controversial article titled "Different Levels of Relationships."
The article features five profiles: one of a young couple who plan to eventually get married, one of a girl who tells of her experience as a gay teen and one of a boy who still believes in chivalry and is waiting to get married before he becomes intimate with a girl.
But two other profiles in the article are getting the most attention. One of them, titled "Player spills inside details," features the sexual escapades of a male student.
"I constantly [get sex] even though I have a girlfriend," said the boy who assumed the fictitious name of Trey Costanda. He is also quoted saying, "The easiest way to get girls is to get them drunk, but that's not right."
"First of all, why would you print that in the school newspaper?" 18-year-old senior Jeff Malaterre asked. "Parents could get upset at the school for publishing something like that."
The other controversial profile in the article featured the story of an openly promiscuous girl, who assumed the fictitious name of Marie Cullen.
"You have to give boys what they want," she said in the article, "My main weapons are my [breasts]."
Cullen also talks about having eight sexual partners and details her first sexual experience.
"I think that's completely inappropriate to put in a newspaper. No one really needs to hear that," 15-year-old sophomore Kelsie Lambeth said.
The controversy has, essentially, spelled out success for the newspaper.
"It's been the most-read issue of the year," Arapahoe Herald newspaper advisor Greg Anderson said.
The 48-year-old is also a journalism teacher at the school. This is his first year serving as newspaper advisor for the Herald, though he's advised other student-run newspapers in the past.
"We go through several edits," he said, adding that the staff chose not to publish other comments that may have been even more controversial.
"We actually toned it down a bit. We didn't put certain things that we thought would be too much," he said.
Anderson says the students who wrote the article were a bit surprised by the mixed reaction.
"It's been a good lesson for students to learn how to handle professionalism and how to handle criticism," Anderson said.
According to a spokesperson for Littleton Public Schools, the newspaper staff followed all of the district's guidelines for student-run publications.
"The policies were followed. The faculty advisor led the students through an informed decision-making process," Littleton Public Schools Communications Director Diane Leiker said. "The process was followed. And now they have the opportunity to learn about what the consequences and the reaction might be."
None of the parties involved in the article are expected to receive any disciplinary action.
Leiker and Anderson acknowledge parents may not like the content of the article. Anyone who has a comment is being encouraged to write a letter to the editor of the Arapahoe Herald.
Some students, however, believe the issue is being blown out of proportion.
"If you go to any high school, you will hear all of those sexual things," 15-year-old sophomore Natalia Lebsack said. "That's just high school... I don't see anything bad about it."
The Arapahoe Herald has been published for 45 years. The paper usually prints about 2,000 copies of each edition. Anderson says the staff hasn't ruled out doing another article on teen relationships next year./>
