Cubtracks History

The student newspaper Cub Tracks began during the 1973-74 school year. Humboldt High School had many different student newspapers over the years whose names changed with almost every adviser: the Orange and Black, Cub Reporter, The Happening, the Cubby Hole, the Cub, and many more.

Adviser Allen Wilhite came to HHS in the fall of 1972, spent a year struggling with the old format and founded Cub Tracks the next year. Through the use of the facilities of the local community paper, the Humboldt Union, students learned to produce a full-size paper almost from day one.

Cub Tracks has grown with technology and became one of the first high school newspapers in the country to use desktop publishing in 1984. With the purchase of a 128K Macintosh and an ImageWriter II ribbon printer (set on double stroke), the staff began creating their own product from scratch and at an affordable cost. Cub Tracks was featured in two Apple Computer publications for its early entry into the desktop market.

Today, the paper is produced on 15 iMac, three Power Mac G4s, and eight e-mac computers and is completely written, edited, and composed by the students on computer.   

The student staffs at Humboldt High School have a long tradition of excellence. During its first 32 years, Cub Tracks has been judged as being All-American by the National Scholastic Press Association 17 times (1981, 1982, 1984, 1985, 1989, 1990, 1991, 1992, 1993, 1994, 1995, 1996, 1997, 1998, 1999, 2000, 2001).

The Publications Department at Humboldt High School has also been crowned State Champion 12 times (1975, 1979, 1986, 1989, 1990, 1991, 1992, 1995, 1997, 1998, 2000, 2001) and Regional Champion 26 times. In addition, HHS journalists have won 55 individual state titles in competition events. Since the All-Kansas Competition began in 1991, Cub Tracks has won a top rating 12 times.

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