The Sacred Heart Beat has a long history of being Saskatchewan's top student newspaper. The Beat won the provincial Annual School Newspaper Competition for eight years running between 1999 and 2006 and again for the past two years.
With a record like that one might think Greg Digout, who has been the teacher advisor of the paper all that time is the driving force behind the success. But Digout credits former student John Himpe.
"It was his idea to change the format and basically we've just been copying that ever since," Digout said.
Prior to Himpe's reign as editor, the Beat was a four-page newsprint tabloid outsourced to a press for printing.
By changing the format to regular 8x14 paper and bringing the printing in-house, they were able to increase the size of the paper to the current 24- to 30-page edition. With so much more space, they were able to do a lot more with it, something judges of the competition appreciate.
"The Beat has good news judgement, and a skillful use of photographs," said Will Chaburn, the 2011-2012 judge.
"Unlike many other school publications, this newspaper has the confidence to do thoughtful, respectful reviews of movies, books and videos. Good for you," he added.
Himpe, who now works for CKOM Radio in Saskatoon and CJME in Regina, said he always wanted to be behind a microphone.
"From making my family suffer through "home editions" of the Price is Right (complete with a broken retractable TV antenna to pretend I was Bob Barker), to numerous Fisher Price toy microphones (I felt like the real deal), I was obsessed as a child with the idea of being on TV or radio," he said
Himpe went on to study journalism at the Southern Alberta Institute of Technology before getting his first journalism job at a TV station in Swift Current.
He has been with CKOM/CJME since 2003 and is now program manager and on-air host of the Friday edition of The Brent Loucks Show.
