Throughout the years the Deseret News has made educational programs a priority among its overall plans to serve the community, and the Sterling Scholar Awards program is just one that serves individual students.
Another program, the award-winning Newspaper-in-Education serviced, offers teachers a new dimension for the classroom, including th eunique "No Books Day" when textbooks are put aside and replaced by the newspaper.Carolyn Dickson, NIE manager; Sherry Madsen, coordinator; and Sylvia Orton, office assistant, are often joined by education specialists for school activities during the year.
On March 7, the Deseret News was the only "textbook" used in hundreds of classrooms across the state. Some 49,244 copies of the Deseret News were distributed to 345 schools and used by 1,722 teachers throughout the state. This was an increase of 10,000 over last year's "No Books Day," as they were distributed to 35 of the state's 40 school districts.
Several programs are offered exclusively for teachers. In addition to informative training sessions on using the newspaper in a vareity of subjects - and receiving state recertification, in-service or univeristy credit - subject seminars are held.
Educators have visited juvenile courts in Davis County, learned about varied cultures in Utah and heard from a 1990 census expert from the regional center in Denver.
Other seminars scheduled will include a visit to the post office and telephone company on April 21, a walk through Salt Lake history on June 23 and a close look at depression in children and youth on Aug. 11.
A national program called Family Focus is continuing for a second year under the co-sponsorship of the Deseret News. It is designed to help parents learn new ways of encouraging their children to foster good reading habits and improve reading skills.
And editorially, the department prepares a weekly "Young Ideas" page that is published in the Deseret News.
Another popular service is the spelling improvement program for youngsters in fourth through eighth grades.
This educational service, designed to improve the spelling skills of students, is a yearlong program that culminates with a state spelling bee. Now in its 14th year, more than 40 public, parochial and private school districts are participating.
Throughout the nation, an estimated 9 million students in fourth through eighth grades are involved in the program, according to the National Spelling Bee headquarters in Cincinnati.
In Utah, public districts are conducting competition in their own area while the Catholic Office of Education, Lutheran and private schools along the Wasatch Front compete among themselves to select a representative to the state championship finals on April 10.
The Deseret News spelling program is sponsored in cooperation with the Utah Education Association, Utah State Office of Education and state PTA.
The state winner and one parent will be guests of the Deseret News to the National Spelling Bee in Washington, D.C., May 25-29.
The first Utah speller to the national contest was Jana Winters in 1977 followed by Cliff Morrison, a three-time winner. In 1981 Mona Wu entered the national contest followed by Mitchell Kalauli, Karen Ellis, Blake Comish, Andrea Stephenson, Christopher Gregory, Monique Child, Tara Huber and Colleen Huber.