On October 14, 1920, The Pinion staff published the first issue of The Pinion. To celebrate the centennial year, current Pinion staffers interviewed former staffers to see how much has changed since their time on staff.

Patricia Jinbo Oishi was a  co-editor of The Pinion. She graduated in 1967. Back then there was a Pinion print paper every day. 

Oishi said one of her favorite things about Newswriting was knowing the news before it came out in print and seeing the collaborative work of all the reporters and their articles.

“It was exciting to be part of that circle of activities and you could recall what you did to bring the print to fruition,” Oishi said.

Part of bringing the paper to fruition was literally making the print paper they passed out. They used typewriters to make the articles, and then they used large amounts of rubber cement to place the articles on a paper.

Working with a typewriter could be difficult because someone might write too much or too little, and adjustments were constantly made. They were also heavily dependent on a T-square, a tool used for aligning articles and columns.

“Of course you had the rubber cement. That was a real lifesaver,” Oishi said. “I remember we had to go around the edges of each article to remove the excess that came out of the article once you placed them on the paper. So we always ended up with a big wad of rubber cement.”

Oishi found stories by listening to her teachers and friends during casual conversations. She tried to notice any fun, important, or interesting information that came up. There were lots of stories to tell during Oishi’s time because of the historical events happening, like the Vietnam War, Martin Luthor King Jr. and the civil rights protests, and the Cold War.

“McKinley was brought into the forefront for being not only an internal high school newspaper but something that would reach out to impact the world as well, ” Oishi said.