Silver Chips: 65 years and still going strong

The first issue of Silver Chips was published on September 25, sixty-five years ago. Over time Silver Chips has evolved from publishing 32 pages a year to 32 pages per issue and now has a readership of over 3,600.

In 1975, Silver Chips was named the top high school newspaper in the country by the National Scholastic Press Association (NSPA) and the Newspaper Association of America Foundation. Currently Silver Chips is one of the preliminary top ten finalists again.

Silver Chips has fostered the talent of several notable celebrities, such as Carl Bernstein, a Silver Chips circulation manager in 1961 who went on to break the Watergate scandal with Bob Woodward. Also, comedian Ben Stein and NPR's Daniel Zwerdling were Silver Chips Editors-in-Chief in 1964 and 1967 respectively.

Silver Chips has changed with the times, and now boasts an online version that yahoo.com named the most popular paper in the country with over a million page views. Over the last three years, Silver Chips Online has won virtually all of the awards in Maryland for an online high school paper.

Silver Chips' first issue (September 25, 1937) was less serious than the current one though, focusing instead on the fun club period (sixth) and similar fluff. Blair had only 525 students because, as one article stated, it was "far from the center of things." There was no freshman class then.

Seniors Dorothy Souder and Joe Workman took the positions of Editors-in-Chief for this first year, and Ms. Hay and Mr. Welch supervised.