The Feather Online history

Online and print edition history

The Feather Online

The 2023-24 staff has 28 students under the leadership of Adviser Kori James, and Editor in Chief Miracle Neal.

The Feather Online staff has numbered 20+ staff members each year since October 2001. Before the online paper existed, the staff often hovered around 5-10 members. While the largest team was 38 on staff for the 2019-20 fall semester, currently 28 students remain a part of Fresno Christian’s online newspaper for the 2023-24 school year.

2023 Website Update

The brand new Feather website launched May 2023 in collaboration with SNO sites after loosing the functionality of the 2015 custom designed website during the 2021 school year. As the last competitive HS online newspaper to join SNO, adviser Kori James felt it was time to hand the technical aspects of the paper to the pros.

Joining the SNO community allows The Feather staff to rebuild an online paper that offers the latest in design preferences, valuable support and consistent updating. This new overhaul will allow the team to participate in critiques and competitions across the nation.

2015 Website Update

While past web masters played a significant role, the Feather website redesign in 2015 was a collaboration between Feather editors, staff and their advisers, Greg Stobbe, Kori Friesen and IT director Robert Hyatt. The total switch from a proprietary website to a modern WordPress design continues since the old Feather Online was shut down April 15, 2015, and retired. The new Feather Online began publishing, Sept. 8, 2015, after being shuttled for five months.

The Feather Online, since its inception in 2001, is a product of student innovation and design. While Feather advisers are an integral part of that, each version is designed and created using Feather staff and its web team.

The online newspaper actually began in 1997/98 school year when Stobbe began to pass the idea around to then print editor-in-chief Nate Warkentin. Highwired.com began as a template-based website that was offering a way for high schools to put their newspapers online. With then-superintendent Tim Wilkins backing the idea, Stobbe went ahead and began enlisting Warkentin to put Feather articles on the Highwired.com website.

While they did not put every article on the web, the site did give Feather students a way to publish online for a worldwide audience. Unfortunately, Highwired.com only was funded for three years and The Feather articles disappeared with their demise in the summer of 2000.

The Feather Online 2014-15 staff photo taken in November 2014.

The Feather editors, Stobbe and then IT director David Martens spent the next 18 months starting a new Feather build on a FileMaker Pro format.

It was ready for daily publication in October 2001. And while FileMaker Pro was never designed for a web-based site, it provided a way for online publishing for three years.

The first reformatted version of The Feather Online originated in the summer of 2004 when adviser Stobbe charged senior Doug DenHartog to rewrite the code and redesign the paper into an HTML format. The editors wanted to make better use of newer technology available since the original online design created using FileMaker Pro in 2001. The difficult part was not the creation of the first new Feather, but the linking of articles from one format to another so as to not loose Feather history.

The next rewrite was handed off to junior Matthew Shattuck in June 2005, and continued through the 2006-07 school year. He added new sections and expanded the capabilities of The Feather Online to include the first videos. However, after Shattuck graduated, the staff determined The Feather Online needed the third revision in order to restructure the PHP scripting using a more modular design.

The webmaster, junior Andrew Rurik, chose to change the HTML structure from a tables-based design to a layers base. This version of The Feather Online launched in January 2008.

Sophomore David Casuga accepted the position of webmaster after Rurik graduated in May 2009. Casuga added new features, including audio and visual slideshows, expanded comic and podcasting sections and new media capabilities to The Feather Online. David Casuga graduated in May 2012.

Dalton Cowin took over the reigns of webmaster during the 2012-13 school year. While he did not add additional features or change the looks of The Feather, he continued to manage the back end until he retired after the 2013-14 school year.

[/media-credit] Before The Feather received its own lab and was renovated, adviser Greg Stobbe, left, lectured to students in a computer lab in this November 2005 photo.

Joining The Feather 2014-15 school year, Friesen began her publication advising careers by teaching photojournalism. Friesen’s role on the team progressed to Feather co-adviser the following year. Hyatt also formally began his role as IT director the same year.

There has not been a true webmaster since then. The Feather Online 2018-19 editors continue their work on a new website with the WordPress template, archiving past articles with adviser Stobbe, photojournalism adviser Friesen and new IT director Robert Hyatt.

Today with the addition of plugins, The Feather Online is poised to publish into the late 2000-teens with updates to its site each August and January.

For more information on The Feather history, read The Feather: Digital transformation, Pt. 1 The Feather history: Award-winning trips, Pt. 2 and The Feather Online returns with new design.

Feather Online Editor(s)-in-chief since 2000 – 2025

Seniors Sam Cross (left to right), Kamryn Schultz and Alexander Rurik were the 2018-19 Feather Online editor-in-chiefs.

Danielle Arndt: 2024-25

Miracle Neal: 2023-24

Amanda Johnson and Emma Calderon: 2022-23

Bryce Foshee: 2020-21

Addison Schultz and Vijay Stephen: 2019-20

Sam Cross, Alex Rurik and Kamryn Schultz: 2018-19

Mariana Fikse, Alex Rurik and Sam Cross: 2017-18

Phillip Christopher, Jennifer King and Nick LeBlanc: 2016/17

Chloe Mueller, Rees Roggenstein and Joshua Carter: 2015/16

Sara Peterson: 2014/15

Tynin Fries: 2012/13 – 2013/14

Nicky Avery and Mary Hierholzer: 2011/12

Austin Ward: 2010/11

Suzanna Quiring: 2009/10

Chelsea Joy: 2008/09

Mary Kneefel and Jennifer Sherfield: 2006/07 – 2007/08

Brianna Stobbe: 2005/06

Alex Elmore and Anne Hierholzer: 2003/04 – 2004/05

Bradley Hart: 2000/01 – 2002/03

Nate Warkentin 1999/2000

The Feather print edition

The print edition of The Feather began in 1982, five years after Fresno Christian Schools began in 1977. The paper was taken over by Joanne Johnson who led the paper until 1993 when Molly Sargent took over the reins for two years. Current adviser Greg Stobbe helped direct The Feather from 1995 until it ceased operations in May 2010 when it solely became a daily online newspaper.

Over the years, The Feather print edition was an All-Valley high school newspaper, earning numerous San Joaquin Valley Scholastic Press Association (SJVSPA) awards sponsored by California State University, Fresno, and their Mass Communication and Journalism Department. The culmination of The Feather’s efforts was in 2008 when the staff won the top award and was honored as the best print high school newspaper from Bakersfield to Lodi in 2008, winning the SJVSPA Sweepstakes and All-Valley newspaper honor.

The Feather also earned Gold Medalist critiques from the Columbia Scholastic Press Association during the mid 2000s before the print edition was retired.

The Feather Online history last updated September 2023