Founded on October 31, 1923, “The Stingaree”, a bi-weekly newspaper now formally known as The Miami High Times, is currently the oldest scholastic newspaper in Miami-Dade County. This year in 2023, the newspaper celebrates its 100th year anniversary.
While the school year begins again, Miami High Times welcomes in new staff and returning veterans. To be part of Miami High Times Staff, you have to take Journalism with Dr. DeNight in room 1217. While the advisor, Dr. Shawn DeNight prepares to teach the new staff, the veterans also prepare to publish their first issues of the year.
Every school year the Miami High Times staff publish 4-5 issues on the Miami High Times website <miamihighnews.com>. Up until Covid lockdown in 2019-2020, besides appearing online, the newspaper was printed on paper and manually given out to students.
As we celebrate the 100 years of scholastic news, lets’ go back in history and see the what the founding staff were writing about during their time in school. The headline to the first publication of “The Stingaree” was “Miami High Has Largest Year In Its History”. During that time, over 1100 students were registered into Miami High, the newspaper was not free, with a subscription costing 50 cents per year and 25 cents per term.
It had stories like “First Issue Of The Stingaree”, “Honor Club Should Organize”, “Debating Teams Have Organized”, “M.H.S. Of Today And Of Yesterday”, “Honor Club Organizes”, and many others. The principal at the time, A.C. Alleshouse, who became principal in 1921 two years prior to the first publication of “The Stingaree”, had his portrait featured on the front of the newspaper.
Another issue from 1923 found in the Miami High archives is their May issue whose headline was “One of the Best Years in History Is Closing”. The issue has stories about Stingaree Publications and “Progress is Subject of Graduation Sermon” which explains how 145 pupils are expected to graduate on June 6th of that year. The founding staff of “The Stingaree” was composed of seniors when they began working on the newspaper, but when they returned from winter break, a huge number of juniors joined.
Between the years 1924 and 1936 the name “The Stingaree” was abandoned and replaced with the current name The Miami High Times meaning that the current name has been around for 90 years. When the name change happened is unknown due to half of the old newspapers from that time period being lost.
On January 9 of 1936 a story titled “Governor says Nine Millions For Education” talks about how former Governor Dave Sholtz said Florida schools will receive 9 million dollars in operating funds. This was reported by Dean Oliver Hoover, a Miami High Delegate. This issue also featured a student known as Martha Barnett who became state champion in tennis for the Stingaree Tennis Team.
On September 28,1944, the featured article on the Miami High Times newspaper was “NHS Plans For October Tapping”. It was about a plan to initiate the newly elected National Honor officers. Miami High Times staff also were planning for a school-wide assembly hour on V-day. It was a victory assembly and they had the help of the student council. It was to celebrate the arrival of “Peace In Orderly And Patriotic Fashion”.
Many stories have been written over the past 100 years, and you are able to find these publications on the Miami High Website on the publication tab. It will feature stories from 1923 all the way to 2019. And the rest are found here on the Miami High Times website.
