OWENSVILLE — Owensville High School students from Amy Quertermous’s new communications class visited the Washington Missourian’s newsroom, production and press building on Sept. 25 in preparation for re-establishing a student newspaper in collaboration with The Gasconade County Republican.

The Republican proposed a collaboration with the school district to help them re-establish their student-ran newspaper last fall. A tab on The Republican’s website called The Dutch Mill: Bringing GCR2 to YOU! is expected to go live by the end of October.

During the two-and-a-half hour tour at The Missourian last Wednesday, the students followed Production Manger Ethan Busse and several members of the Missourian’s pressmen and mangers throughout the process of printing a newspaper.

The Republican had a late press run on Sept. 24 and due to a submission delay at a Warren County newspaper, was still hanging from presses when students arrived on Wednesday morning. The class waited an hours to see the pressmen complete the product checks before running the Warren County newspaper. They also witnessed production of run plates, the paper room and the mailing room.

Mike Cooper, in production management, showed students a 4,500 pound tote where black ink is kept and three smaller 10,000 pound totes where colored ink is stored before holding up a newspaper and explaining a teaspoon of ink goes into each.

The totes of ink brought a whole new perspective to the phrase, “don’t mess with people who buy ink by the barrel.” In The Washington Missourian’s case, the phrase should be slightly altered to, “don’t mess with people who buy their ink by the tote and their paper by the roll.”

Watch The Republican for more information from The Dutch Mill.