I'm back from eight days at the Summer Journalism Workshop at Seattle University.

Fifteen student journalists from high schools around the state worked with mentors from The News Tribune, The Seattle Times, the Seattle P-I and the Yakima Herald-Republic on storiess, photos and online content for the participating newspapers.

One of "our" students, Joe Sutton-Holcomb of Vashon Island High School, won a $1,000 scholarship at the end of the workshop. That's the third year in a row that students assigned to The News Tribune have won such an honor.

Joe's story on the squeeze facing Pierce County food banks ran last week. Another Trib student, Kristie Hsin of Decatur High School in Federal Way, has a story on Page B-1 of Monday's paper.

Watch for stories from our other students, Jordan Seto of Anderson Island and Andrea Muffly of Snohimish High, in the coming weeks.

The News Tribune is again helping to sponsor the Summer Journalism Workshop at Seattle University.

The workshop, under the leadership of former Seattle Times reporter Tomas Guillen, gives selected high school students the chance to develop their skills as journalists under real-world conditions.

Professional journalists from newspapers around the state work with the students, with the goal of getting their work published in the mentors' own newspapers or on their web sites.

Beginning Friday, I'll be working with four students:

• Jordan Seto, an Anderson Island resident and a student at Charles Wright Academy. He's the son of Natalie Bates and Peter Seto.

• Kristie Hsin of Federal Way. Kristie's a student at Decatur High School and is the daughter of Marie Chang and Ming Hsin.

• Andrea Muffly, who lives in Snohomish and attends Snohomish High School. Her parents are Cathy and Gerard Muffly.

• Joe Sutton-Holcomb of Port Orchard. Joe's a student at Vashon Island High and is the son of Frank Holcomb and Nancy Sutton.

• The Boeing Co. and its supporters in Congress won a major victory Wednesday when the Government Accountability Office issued a report concluding that the Air Force made "major errors" in awarding a multi-billion-dollar contract for new tanker aircraft to a team led by Grumman and Europe's EADS consortium.

• The chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the nation's top military leader, came to the Puget Sound area Wednesday to visit with soldiers and airman at Fort Lewis and McChord.

If you just don't appreciate the combination of engineering and history that make sailing ships so appealing, you're probably going to want to be out of town the first week of July. That's when the boats return for Tall Ships Tacoma 2008.

For the other 700,000 or so of you - judging by the crowds that showed up in 2005 - get ready to have some fun. At The News Tribune, we went a little overboard three years ago with our tall ships coverage - full page posters, pull out guides, saturation festival coverage. Readers loved it and so did we. We've been waiting for them to come back ever since.

We've been plotting this year's tall ships reporting plan for the past six months or so. It's safe to say that this year's coverage will exceed 2005's excessive coverage. Here are some of the highlights:

• We've started this Tall Ships blog to follow the latest about the festival and the ships. As we get closer to the event, it will become our vehicle for live coverage.

• We're creating a Tall Ships web page with archived stories, photo and multimedia galleries and festival information.

• We're sending columnist Kathleen Merryman and a photojournalist to cover the tail end of the Victoria, B.C., Tall Ships festival next week and then sail down from Victoria to Tacoma aboard the U.S. Coast Guard Eagle. You'll recall that Kathleen made a similar voyage aboard the Lynx during the 2005 festival, giving readers a taste of life on board.

• On Sunday, June 30, our major coverage kicks off with a front page preview of the event and a four-page commemorative section introducing the ships and previewing the festival. Our SoundLife section will start its week-long Tall Ships theme, which will include a look at Puget Sound nautical history, modern day pirates and cooking on a ship galley.

• We'll be checking in on the flotilla of tall ships as they head down Puget Sound and assemble in Quartermaster Harbor July 2 in preparation for the July 3 Parade of Sail. During the festival, we'll be offering daily coverage of the event from a crew of about a dozen photographers and reporters.

• Once again, we're planning two-page posters from our award-winning photo staff every day during the festival.

If you have tall ships stories you'd like to see, let me know and I'll see what we can do.

• Nancy Shippentower-Games took her seat on the Puyallup Tribal Council Tuesday, becoming the third member of the dissident group "Full Circle" to win election to the council in the last three years. Full Circle members, who have been critical of what they see as cronyism and corruption by long-established council members, now are within sight of control over the seven-member body.

• Seattle SuperSonics owner Clayton Bennett was questioned Tuesday about e-mails that went back and forth among team owners that seemed to demonstrate that they were determined to move the team to Oklahoma City right from the start. That's not what we meant, Bennett testified.

• Semaj Book caught another break Monday when a judge decided not to rescind a plea agreement that kept the 10-year-old from having a criminal conviction on his record. Superior Court Judge John McCarthy said Semaj needs help, not a record.

• It's been hard to find anyone with anything good to say about Mariners general manager Bill Bavasi recently. Well, fans won't have Bill to kick around anymore. The team's top management fired Bavasi in reaction to the team's collapse this season.

• Puyallup businessman Jimmy Chen is joining forces with Boeing to deliver relief supplies to earthquake-ravaged areas of China.

Friday, June 13, 2008

A1: "Gitmo ruling" headline says ruling grants rights, but the Constitution actually grants the rights, SCOTUS upheld them.

Loved the wire photo on the back of the A section of a dog look at salmon.

"How to pick" box was very useful information for readers with the TSA centerpiece.

B1: Loved the Nose graphic and column. Funny stuff.

Sports: Great centerpiece on the local golfer, Kyle Stanley.

Business: Too much exploded type in the centerpiece. Great idea for a story.

Go: Reader comments have tapered off about the change in format

• The Transportation Security Administration – TSA to most of us – is evaluating a new airport screening system at Sea-Tac that's designed to speed up the process by giving air travelers a choice based on factors such as their familiarity with the agency's procedures, the number of carry-on items they're bringing through the line and any disabilities they might have.

• The News Tribune's Kathleen Merryman and Joe Barrantine are in Astoria, Ore., where the U.S. Coast Guard Eagle is visiting. The Eagle is the main attraction at July's Tall Ships Tacoma festival.

Thursday, June 12, 2008

A1: Rainier rescue story was fascinating, well-written.

Rhubarb was great local story. Excellent photography.

Nice beat work from reporter Ian Dempsky yielded "Feds sue state" story.

B1: Nice centerpiece feature photo.

Sports: No comments.

Business: No comments.

Soundlife: Great subject for the Sound to Narrows. Be sure to check out the video.

• The U.S. Labor Department is targeting the state Department of Corrections in a lawsuit filed in Tacoma. The federal agency says community corrections officers working for the state did not receive proper overtime reimbursement.

• A Fort Lewis-based Ranger has been killed in Iraq, possibly the result of friendly fire.

• Rescuers bring two hikers off Mount Rainier via helicopter, but the body of a third person remains at Camp Muir. The three were caught by a storm that swept the mountain.

Wednesday, June 11, 2008

A1: Centerpiece was a well-written tale about a sad incident. Nice details in the story.

Fishing monkeys headline on the back of the A section had a great headline. Made us chuckle.

Good coverage on the Rainier story. Here's the latest story.

B1: Merryman column was an interesting story, points out the value in traveler's insurance.

Thanks to the Snohomish County Herald for helping us cover the Donalydia Huertas trial.

Sports: Great McGrath column.

Business: Voelpel column was interesting, great "green" topic.

Soundlife: Grilling tips seemed propane-intensive.

• Nicholas Miller led a well-ordered life. Despite being developmentally disabled, he held down a job and managed many of the routine affairs of his life. But his death in an accident at Tacoma Goodwill's Operations Center raised questions about whether he was properly supervised. Reporter Ian Demsky talked to his parents and state workplace experts about Miller's life and untimely death.

• County Executive John Ladenburg is pushing a property tax increase that would enable the county to preserve rural and urban land from development.

• The storm that rolled through the area overnight proved deadly to a Bellevue hiker on Mount Rainer. Two others were suffering from hypothermia and rescuers were rushing to their aid Tuesday.

Tuesday, June 10, 2008

A1: Lots of news in the A section. John Gillie and Dan Voelpel stories on the Euland resignation complimented each other. We had great sourcing for that story and broke the news early Monday.

Should the Russell story have a timestamp? Or the police chase story? It's still unclear when to timestamp stories in the paper.

Back page photo was shot by Janet Jensen. The Pursuit story had lots of great detail and many voices. Well done.

B1: Another newsy page. On B2, "Woman convicted of abuse" story could have been on B1. We'll cover the sentencing later this week.

Sports: Nice bold presentation on Ken Griffey's 600th homer.

Biz: Nice lede in the centerpiece on custom funerals and pre-funerals.

Soundlife: Nice look back at the Hilltop Artists in Residence Tacoma program.

Monday, June 9, 2008

A1: Some head scratching over the "Knowing our pain" headline. The group got it, but it seemed obtuse.

Debby Abe's story about senior projects was interesting and showed the inconsistencies of how this good idea is not well executed at some schools.

On A2, the Tall Ships house ad has an error. The URL for the tall ships web page is not active yet. We're working on it this week.

B1: Nice sense of place centerpiece on the Tacoma Armory.

Biz: We liked the headline on the Wilcox Farms CEO.

Sports:

Soundlife:

Sunday, June 8, 2008

A1: Earmarks centerpiece. Interesting and informative. The AP story on A9 claims outrage, but we just show the money. Does the AP story overstate earmarks as a reason for Congress' realignment during the last election cycle? Maybe. There were a couple of questions about the presentation too. What are those mugs doing for the readers? They represent, in order, earmark money brought to the state by our delegation. And the headline is a specific number, but the story explains that it's not the actual number.

There's a lot of great content to promote in the paper besides Big Brown losing. The group thought it would be better to tease more content inside. We prefer 3-4 teasers on the Sunday cover.

B1:

Sports:

Biz: The cell phone centerpiece was useful information for readers. Stay tuned for more cell phone law stories.

Soundlife: Fun read about miniature golf. The story needed a time element. The match happened last December, but that's not in the caption or story.

Saturday, June 7, 2008

A1: Photo of chilly kids is great, really nailed it. Sunshine graphic was nice addition to the page. Teasers are successful. Numbers are always great in teasers and these worked.

B1:

Sports: Jake Locker story was interesting.

Home & Garden: The before garden photos were too small. On the cover and inside they were hard to read.

• Semaj Booker's next trip may not be so pleasant. The peripatetic Tacoma 10-year-old is facing a court hearing later this month, stemming from his latest attempt to stow away aboard a jetliner. That, prosecutors say, obviates his agreement with a judge last year that kept him out of juvenile detention.

• Troubled contractor Christopher Kelley will be sentenced Friday after pleading guilty to defrauding Sound Sound homeowners and businesses by taking money for construction work that he never completed.

• How low can you go? When it comes to tides in the South Sound, Wednesday's lows were about as much as this area ever sees. In fact, there won't be another low tide of similar magnitude till 2022.

• Billionaire investor George Soros and Eastern Washington fuel distributor Gerry Ramm think alike on the possible impact of speculators on crude oil prices. They both told the Senate Commerce Committee that rampant speculation has fueled the rapid increase in the price of oil and its byproducts.

• State educational leaders are celebrating the substantial improvement shown by this year's high school seniors in the WASL exam.

• It's been a long time, but the Sonics are returning to the Northwest to play. No, not those Sonics. We're talking about the iconic Tacoma rock band of the '60s and '70s.

• A name well known to law enforcement in the Pacific Northwest surfaced again Monday as federal, state and local officers raided strip clubs in three counties. The clubs are fronts for prostitution, drug sales and other crimes, investigators believe. A Parkland club was one of the targets of the raids.

• The children of deployed servicemen and women feel their own stress. A conference at Madigan Army Medical Center Monday addressed the issue, with a number of military kids on hand to offer their perspectives.

• Red light cameras for unincorporated areas of Pierce County are worth a try, the Pierce County Council decides.