Boulder High teacher — with help from alumni — looks to revive school's Owl newspaper

Boulder High teacher Jonathan Wright holds a copy of the student newspaper The Prep Owl from 1917 in a storage closet at the school on Friday. Wright is going to try to restart the defunct publication. (Paul Aiken / Staff Photographer)

Boulder High language arts teacher Jonathan Wright is talking up the value of high school newspapers in an effort to recruit enough students to resurrect the school's long-running student publication.

He needs about 25 students to sign up when registration starts next month after receiving approval from the language arts department and Boulder High's principal to bring back The Owl.

"Now it goes to the will of the students," he said.

The Owl went online-only in 2010 because of budget cuts, low enrollment and not enough revenue from ads, and the newspaper class was combined with yearbook. By 2014, with only one student signed up for the newspaper side of the class, The Owl disappeared altogether.

An Owl alum, Steve Knopper, heard that the paper no longer was operating and talked to Wright and the former adviser, Jeff Likes, about how to bring it back. Likes is retiring at the end of the school year.