Pat Graff has traveled to Indiana for the last 16 summers, leaving her hometown of Albuquerque, N. M., to lead hundreds of high school journalists to the High School Journalism Institute, a weeklong schedule of events designed to bolster budding journalists as they tackle the world of student publications.

Graff has been to a number of such institutes, but in the end, she said HSJI always is the site she chooses for herself and her own high school students.

"All of your energy gets focused into being a journalist here," she said. "There's not a lot of playing around."

Through July 25, more than 500 high schoolers from around the country are attending one of three one-week sessions held at Ernie Pyle Hall and on the IU campus. This marks the 61st year for HSJI, a program that divides student attendees based on their specific media interests, from newspaper to yearbook, photojournalism to design.

Graff is just one of the publications advisers who travels with students. She is a journalism teacher at La Cueva High School in Albuquerque, N. M. Over the last 30 years of her career, the term censorship has taken a much more prominent role.

"It used to be just the private schools, but now everyone is getting slapped down," she said.

Student papers across the country have felt the heat, particularly in Woodburn, Ind., where a newspaper adviser was fired this past year for allowing a student to write an opinion column advocating tolerance of homosexuality.

Graff's response to such stories is simple: "If you don't let people try on their rights and responsibilities, they will never learn."

Some attendees already have learned a lot at their high schools as they have taken classes or worked on school publications. Others, such as Kelsey Shannon and Marie Jubak, classmates at a Cincinnati area school, come to learn from the ground up.

"It's my first year in journalism," Shannon said. "I'm learning everything basically, all the layouts and terms."

Having both enrolled in their school's yearbook class, the two say skills acquired in the yearbook workshop will be useful as soon as they get back to school this fall.

Others in attendance, such as Mark Miller, a high school junior from Portland, Ore., have somewhat loftier plans of applying what they learn at the institute.

"I want to become an international correspondent in Africa," he said. "I can't really explain it. It's just a connection I have."

During the newspaper workshop, he said he is learning about the whole process, from generating story ideas to reporting to actually practicing the skills.

"It's kind of the mechanics of it all," he said, "what makes it all tick."

All of the newspaper students in the institute got a firsthand look the craft during a panel session with Indiana Daily Student staff members. Halfway through the first week, the college editors and an area high school adviser shared stories about covering sensitive issues.

Recent IU graduate and former IDS editor-in-chief Michael Zennie told students to involve as many people as possible when making tough decisions.

"Involve people who don't have a stake," he said, "even your parents, who don't have a lot of journalistic background, because that is another perspective."

Zennie and the other panel members related their knowledge to two recent deaths on the Indiana University campus that they had covered, that of the publication's adviser and the school's football coach. With personal relationships present in both instances, Zennie advised students to pay attention to emotions.

"Emotions are definitely something that you should be mindful of," Zennie said. "Don't let them rule your judgment, but it's good to harness them."

For almost every question posed to the panel, long time Carmel High School newspaper adviser Tony Willis had a simple answer to offer: Be prepared.

"Have a policy in place and it sure saves you a lot of heartache in the end," Willis said. While in his reins, his school had a plan of action for student deaths, teacher deaths and other situations, and because of that was able to deal with sensitive situations more effectively, he said.

While most of the week was full of six-hour a day classes and evenings of homework, the institute also allowed for some fun.

Current IU journalism students serve as counselors, guides and event planners, living in Teter Quadrangle alongside the high school students. After classes Wednesday, the college and HSJI attendees formed teams for dodge ball and Frisbee.

"We try to help kids get a good idea of what it's like to be at IU," said head counselor Sean Abbott.

However, with lights out at 11:30 p.m., it's clear these journalists are not college-aged yet.