About the Lantern

The Frederick Lantern is the online student newspaper of Frederick High School, 5690 Tipple Parkway, Frederick, Colorado. Our school population is currently 1,402 students, and our community readership averages 750 readers per month. The Lantern is staffed by the students of Frederick High who enroll in the Journalism class.

The Lantern publishes three to six stories per week from the beginning of September to the end of May each year. The Lantern is a member of the Colorado Student Media Association and is supported by the Frederick chapter of the Quill and Scroll International Honor Society for High School Journalists.

Our Humble Beginnings: The Warrior Scout

The Warrior Scout logo, designed for Frederick High School in 1979. This image donned the masthead of both the first and second iterations of the Frederick Scout. (Frederick Lantern)

The earliest iteration of the Frederick High student newspaper was The Warrior Scout, a physically produced monthly newspaper from 1979 to 1987. The Warrior Scout covered student social life and school sports, and the paper featured original comics, puzzles, and games made by the students.

The original newspaper editors named the paper “the scout” to evoke the Native American scouts that would look for danger and report to tribal leaders (as well as the fact that newspaper reporters are sometimes called “scouts”). Fittingly, the masthead of The Warrior Scout was an originally commissioned drawing of the head of a Native American warrior,

Increased costs, decreased readership, and a lack of student interest led to the shuttering of The Warrior Scout in the spring of 1987. For 30 years, Frederick had no student publications other than the yearbook.

Revival: The Frederick Scout and Dreamcatcher

The logo for The Frederick Dreamcatcher (2016-2022). The name for the literary magazine came from the idea that writing and art are dreams made real, so a literary magazine would be a literal catcher for dreams. (Frederick Lantern)

In 2017, English teacher Brandon Coon founded Frederick High’s first literary magazine The Frederick Dreamcatcher. The Dreamcatcher created its first issue after holding a scary story contest that has now become a Frederick tradition. The Dreamcatcher went on to publish the artwork, photography, and creative writing of the students and staff of Frederick.

A year after the founding of The Dreamcatcher, Mr. Coon and Frederick student Shawn Rose (’20) revived the student newspaper as The Frederick Scout. This second iteration of the newspaper started as a small after-school club with Rose as its first Editor-in-chief. The Scout reused the old Warrior Scout masthead, and it published movie reviews, sports stories, and student life stories each month on a homemade website.

Interest grew in the new newspaper over the spring of 2019, resulting in the formation of a new journalism class. The after-school club of students became the Frederick chapter of Quill and Scroll, and the Journalism class became the new staff of the paper. Frederick partnered with School Newspapers Online to develop a fully functional news production site. Publication increased to five stories per week right before the start of the 2020 COVID-19 pandemic. The Scout then became a vital lifeline for students, using its new social media to give pandemic updates.

The Frederick Scout masthead, which graced the top of our school news site from the first site launch on October 31, 2018 to the relaunch of the news site on May 31, 2022. (Frederick Lantern)

A New Dawn: The Frederick Lantern

A close up of the flame in the center of The Lantern logo. There are three different flares: an orange F-shape next to a red S-shape (FS, a nod to the old Frederick Scout), and a yellow L-shape under the orange flare (creating an FL, The Frederick Lantern). The distinct shape of the orange and yellow flames were also inspired by birds in flight. (Frederick Lantern)

In spring of 2022, Frederick High changed its mascot from the Warrior to the Golden Eagle to comply with Colorado Senate Bill 21-116, which required Colorado schools without official tribal affiliation to get rid of any Native American mascots to avoid being fined by the state. Part of this change required Frederick’s publications to also shed any links to Native American iconography.

After a month-long process, the staff of the Scout changed the news site’s name to The Frederick Lantern as a reference to the lamppost icon used by the City of Frederick. The new and current masthead for the scout was designed by Joelle Richard (’23).

The Dreamcatcher also changed its name to The Frederick Firefly and became fully housed inside the news website. It has shifted from print publication to weekly digital posts and contests.