LINK: New Year's Resolutions from Columbia Heights HS Students

Getting better grades, making new friends, stopping cursing—those are among the resolutions the iLander student news website reported.

Fridley Area Student Dishes Up Hot Dogs at MN State Fair

The Columbia Heights High student is one of many teens who take summer jobs at the fair

The Columbia Heights iLander, an online news site run by local students, ran a feature story Monday about a student who has been working at the state fair for Peter's Hot Dogs for the past two years. Alexis Britten, a Columbia Heights Heigh student, said she plans on working more than 100 hours throughout the fair. The iLander has more: Britten also likes the fact that she’s learned to get along with other people professionally. “You have to be positive all the time, and the variety of customers are interesting as well,” she said. “Everyone is different, so you have to be professional; even if it’s just hot dogs.”  Since she is unemployed throughout the rest of the year, she plans to continue working there. The only thing that bothers her …

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LINK: Should Students and Teachers Be Facebook Friends?

That's the question posed by the iLander, Columbia Heights High School's student news website.

Columbia Heights iLander Pays Student Journalists

The online-only news source receives about 50,000 page views a year.

In January, Columbia Heights High School senior Gabe Hewitt earned his traditional $10-an-hour rate to interview a five-year-old reincarnated Buddhist lama. Hewitt, a student reporter for the Columbia Heights iLander, was writing a 1,000-word feature story on Jalue Dorjee, the first Minnesota-born lama. The profile, published on Jan. 26, recounted the “vivid and symbolic dreams” that were the first step in identifying Dorjee as a lama and detailed the child’s extracurricular interests in Wii Sports Resort and Power Ranger Samurai. “I never thought meeting a five-year-old boy could be one of the biggest moments of my life so far,” Hewitt began his story. Hewitt is one of six student staff members on the iLander, an online-only “community …

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LINK: For Teen Mom, It Was 'Tell Somebody, Disappointment, Acceptance'

Columbia Heights High School senior doesn't regret having a baby.