Doug Cumming grew up in a “tense journalistic environment” in the 1960s and 70s. His father, Joe Cumming, was the Southern Bureaucratic Chief for Newsweek and covered the civil rights movement. The childhood example of changing the world through journalism has led Cummings here, Virginia Journalism Day, VA jDay, at Harrisonburg High School.

Cummings is an Associate Professor at Washington and Lee University representing his Washington and Lee. W&L has the oldest professional journalism school in the United States, created by Robert E. Lee,  and Cummings is busy recruiting more students.

“We have a small but highly selective and effective program and I’m very proud of it,” said Cummings.

George Mason University was also represented at jDay . GMU has 14 student-run publications with self-generated revenue. Student Media at the university focuses on allowing students to build a meaningful resume and learn skills that future employers desire. The Community Manager for Student Media, Aram Zucker-Scharff, is recruiting high school students for GMU but also wants to educate young journalists about the changing reality of the field.

“It doesn’t matter who you are. If you have the skills to create content you can compete with major news sites for hits,” said Zucker-Scharff. “My job is to help students learn how to use new technology and also build relationships. It’s a lot of fun.”

Another jDay exhibitor was Leslie Dennis, representing the Southern Interscholastic Press Association. Dennis is here to promote SIPA’s annual conference in Columbia, South Carolina, for high school journalists. She is one of two full-time employees for SIPA, along with director Karen Flowers. Dennis does mostly office work and management. She is also getting her Masters in English and Education from University of South Carolina and plans to continue working with high school journalism.

“I’ve been involved with high school journalism for almost 12 years and I just can’t imagine life without it,” said Dennis.

The final three exhibitors at jDay were three competing yearbook companies: Balfour Yearbooks, Herff-Jones Yearbooks and Walsworth Yearbooks. The Herff-Jones booth was a popular stop for students, as the table was covered with boxes of candy, silly bands, brightly colored pens and pins with snarky sayings. On the other hand, Balfour had intriguing yearbooks displayed. There were yearbooks with magnetic covers, dry erase covers and even cork board covers.

Yearbook representatives not only attend around five to eight conferences a year to try and bring in more customers, they also work closely with middle and high schools to design yearbooks.

“I love when brainstorming covers and themes with editors and helping them create the product. You get to know kids a long time, sometimes as much as six years, and I do get a little teary-eyed when they graduate,” said Herff-Jones representative Kara Petersen.

All the representatives at jDay were Virginia representatives for their company. Attending state conferences are always a good opportunity to meet schools a rep would actually work with, as opposed to national conferences where a VA rep may be talking to kids from California or Nebraska.

“At national conferences we do generally get more customers, just because there are more people there. I like state conferences because I can talk to people for longer and they will be the ones we can actually make a difference for,” said Walsworth rep Whitney Morris.

Most of these representatives do have significant yearbook knowledge. High school yearbook editors go to college to become yearbook editors, who then transition to teaching yearbook, becoming a yearbook company representative or both. Balfour representative Tammy Bailey was a high school editor, editor at Texas A & M and then got her representative job, having worked with Balfour in high school.

All of these adults have knowledge that young journalists can learn from, so high school students would be wise to never skip conference exhibits. The representatives are friendly and helpful. And there’s candy too.