By AVIS BERNEY

Oak Harbor High School career specialist

Flying to work on Kenmore Air was the capstone of Oak Harbor High School’s job shadow program this spring.

The free flight to and from Seattle was one of highlights for the three videography students and their teacher. The Kenmore Air flight expanded the amount of time in Seattle for their shadow and allowed them to have more time to tour three audio and video production houses.

Kim Gardner, Laura Herman, Amanda Gordon and teacher Chris Douthitt flew to Seattle aboard Oak Harbor’s Kenmore Air seaplane service to visit Bad Animals, Flying Spot and Pure Audio. Their shadow experience allowed the students to see how their class relates to the working world of audio and video production.

Gordon described the experience as “awesome,” while Herman remarked that they were appreciative of the studios and Kenmore Air. “It allowed us to see how employees worked in teams and in one case, one studio allowed us to have some hands-on experience,” she said.

Douthitt said he was “impressed in every respect, the time shared with us, their knowledge, their energy, and their openness and finally, the quality of the shadow.”

With state-of-the-art equipment, all three students saw how multidimensional the studios were in serving their customers. They saw the process for doing the graphics for the Seattle Storm at Flying Spot and were awed by the size of the music library at Pure Audio.

While the videography students toured the Seattle studios, two journalism students were invited to attend an editors’ meeting at the Seattle Post Intelligencer along with their journalism teacher, Jim Waller. John Gagnon and Miriam Goodman, editors for Oak Harbor High School’s student-produced newspaper, The Breeze, participated in an impressive job shadow.

Both Goodman and Gagnon expressed amazement at the process, the tight deadlines, and as Goodman stated, “The idea of producing a paper every day . . . something we do that takes a month.”

Goodman plans to become a journalist and was both intrigued with the industry and apprehensive of the competition for positions at the Seattle paper. They also received a real-world lesson. Because they were allowed to attend the meeting to decide what would appear in the paper the next morning, they were able to see and understand the editor’s job of pulling stories for breaking news.

They left the meeting right before the climbing/helicopter accident on Mount Hood in Oregon. When the three rushed to open the paper the next day, they saw the planned headlines had been pulled at the last minute, just after they left the meeting, in favor of the Hood accident.

Gagnon and Goodman were also disappointed when they discovered the pay was low and most have to start at the bottom. They learned that a college degree didn’t always assure one of a job, in fact, and were told that experience was preferred. They too were impressed with the teamwork and the amount of communication necessary when deadlines are so critical.

These job shadows were part of approximately 60 done by Oak Harbor High School juniors and seniors. Partnering with the Chamber Education Committee and Oak Harbor businesses and agencies, students performed job shadows with wildlife biologists, X-ray technicians, chiropractors, local businesses, teachers, physical therapists, policemen, firemen, forensic scientists and people from other occupations.

Each shadow connected a student’s classroom experience to knowledge they need to succeed in the working world. For more information, call Avis Berney, career specialist, at 279-5415.