Student newspaper released on time despite burglary

BY COLBY FRAZIER
DAILY SOUND STAFF WRITER

A week after five computers and other valuable equipment was stolen from the offices of The Forge, Santa Barbara High School’s student newspaper, the bi-monthly publication’s eighth edition of this school year will hit news racks today, on time.
Ruth Bartz, a journalism and news writing teacher who advises the staff of young journalists, said her students buckled down and finished the paper despite having to redo much of their work.


“They came back from it, they rose to the occasion and they got the paper out,” Bartz said. “This was a big deal for the students and a big deal because a newspaper is a record of the community.”
Bartz said she realized computers were missing on Friday, Feb. 1 around 7 a.m. When students arrived to assess what had been taken, the list grew to include a printer, scanner and camera that combined with the five computers, totaled more than $12,000.
But the monetary loss, according to Bartz and the paper’s editor, Daniel Langhorne, pales in comparison to a small portion of the school’s history that will be lost forever.
“They robbed the history of Santa Barbara High,” Bartz said, “There’s going to be a gap in the archived history.”
Bartz said the majority of paper’s stories and photos over the past year had been archived and backed up on discs, but much of what was done since the beginning of the new year had not.
Barbara Keyani, a spokeswoman for the Santa Barbara School District, said last week that the school’s principal, Dr. Mark Caprito, told her he ordered $6,500 worth of computers on the day of the burglary. But that came as news to Bartz, who said she has not yet received any word from Caprito, who she has attempted to contact several times.
Of the five stolen computers, which are all Apple Macintosh and valued at roughly $2,000, Bartz said three of them are so new they’re still under warrantee.
The Forge, which has been continuously published since 1914, receives the majority of its funding through advertising and other fundraising efforts, Bartz said. She said the school kicked in $1,000 of assistance for this year, which is put towards printing costs that she said total about $3,000 for a half year worth of printing.
With scant funding, Bartz believes it will be difficult to replace the computers, which she said took five years of scrimping and saving to purchase.
After the word of the burglary spread last weekend, Bartz said she has received numerous e-mails from members of the community who want to help.
On the same day The Forge was burglarized, Keyani said a flat-screen television valued at $1,100 was taken from a science classroom.
Two days before these burglaries, three computers were stolen from the school’s yearbook office, which is located next door to The Forge.
Keyani said the Santa Barbara Police Department was contacted immediately, and a police spokesman said the investigation is ongoing.
Langhorne, a senior who began working for The Forge on his first day of high school, said there was never any question that the paper would be finished and roll off of the presses on schedule.
“I don’t think there was any doubt that we were going to put it out this week,” he said. “Everyone just kind of buckled down and got their work done.”