The H Factor: Our Future Journalists Take a Step Back in Time to Help Visitors in the Here and Now

A few days ago, we caught up with a group of future journalists taking a step back in time, and they are doing it to help visitors in the here and now.

Kayla knows that sometimes you have to get down to shoot up!

Mance Park Middle School Teacher Ms. Petkovsek's students are recreating the walking guide for visitors of Huntsville's historic Oakwood Cemetery. Ms. "P." explains that this is the culminating project at the end of this semester, and it's done every other year.

History just steps away from the Mance Park Middle School.

Several of her classes are collaborating on the guide, which will require students to research, fact check, photograph, update and create a downloadable document that anyone interested in Huntsville (or Texas) history can use to guide themselves around Oakwood. Students drew names out of thirty prominent sites to determine their subjects, and these will present to the class on their subject in addition to producing this walking guide.

Eduardo sizes up these gravestones to get the best shot.

Many of us are familiar with the cemetery being the final resting place of Texas Hero Samuel Houston, though here are many other grave sites of note, including those of both Union and Confederate soldiers and various Texas historical figures.

Veronica demonstrating the composition
principle of leading lines.

Alexia finds the right framing.

One of the most photographed areas of Oakwood has to be gravesite of Rawley Powell, a young boy who died and whose parents erected a full size replica of "The Christus" by Danish Sculptor Bertel Thorwaldsen. This is the statue that is known informally as the "Black Jesus," as the bronze has developed a deep dark patina over the years.