MORGANTOWN -- Small, rural newspapers across the state will get a multimedia boost this winter through a project at West Virginia University's Perley Isaac Reed School of Journalism.

It's the second phase of a school-year-long undertaking that got its start in the spring of 2008, when two students approached Professor and Interim Associate Dean John Temple.

"We wanted to do a senior multimedia project," explained senior Elaine McMillion.

Energized by the idea, Temple received a grant from the McCormick Foundation of Chicago and recruited other students interested in writing, photography and video.

And he signed up some newspapers: the weekly Hampshire Review, Nicholas Chronicle, Parsons Advocate and Pocahontas Times, with one more still to be added.

In the first phase of the project during the fall semester, students produced stories for the newspapers.

"We're creating multimedia packages for them about people and issues in their counties," Temple said. "Students travel out and do these stories and then the packages run on the newspapers' Web sites and on a journalism school Web site," as well as in the Charleston Daily Mail.

The students learned to use new equipment and software and to integrate text, photographs and video into vivid news reporting and storytelling.

Their stories include one on a camouflage-themed wedding in Nicholas County, one on the Potomac Eagle excursion train in Hampshire County and one on the Alldredge Academy program for troubled teenagers in Tucker County.

In the second phase this coming spring semester, students will train newsroom staff in the techniques they've learned.

"About half at least, maybe a little more, of the weekly newspapers around the state have Web sites, but in a lot of cases they're pretty rudimentary sites -- they just have basically what's in the print edition," Temple said.

While readers get their news increasingly from the Internet, small rural newsrooms don't always have the time or money to invest in their Web sites.

"So what we're trying to do is give them some ways of improving the editorial content on their Web sites without expending a great deal of time in training or in the execution," Temple said.

Chris Stadelman, editor and publisher of the Parsons Advocate, was deciding in late December exactly what he wants his paper to get from the program.

"John (Temple) basically sent us a menu of different training and software applications, and we're trying to figure out which ones we're going to pursue," Stadelman said. "They are certainly going to help us with video, and we may look at some blogging."

Producing multimedia stories in the fall semester was energizing for McMillion, a news-editorial major from Charleston and one of the six seniors involved.

"Writing is my passion, but I'm real excited to be able to graduate in May with videography and photography skills and leave the school with a knowledge of multimedia," she said.

"I never thought that I would learn so much in such a short amount of time -- and now I catch myself teaching others," she added.

Learning the latest skills is important to Kendal Montgomery, a student from Williamstown whose coursework centers on photojournalism.

"I think what we're learning is really on the cusp of journalism, so I think we'll definitely be able to succeed," Montgomery said.

In the spring semester, the newspapers will benefit, too.

"For us, it's a great opportunity to expand a Web presence that is still in its infancy," said the Parsons Advocate's Stadelman.

Beginning Jan. 1, the Parsons Advocate Web site was scheduled to have not only its existing free area but a subscription aspect as well, he said.

"This will give us some great content in the free section to help drive traffic," he said.

McMillion, Montgomery and their fellow students so far plan to seek employment outside the state when they graduate, but McMillion said that could change.

"Maybe next semester, when we start doing the training, there might be some of us that think this is where we need to be," she said. "And you never know how quick I'll get tired of the big city and decide I'd rather work at the Pocahontas Times."

Supported by the McCormick Foundation grant, Temple will partner with the University of Kentucky in the fall of 2009 and hopes to add more students at WVU -- as well as more newspapers.

The main criterion is interest, he said.

"Are you interested in what we're doing, will you take the time to put our stuff up on the Web and learn some things and hopefully teach us some things?" he asked rhetorically. "Because I think it's really great for our students to get exposed to these newspapers in these communities."

Temple hopes the project will contribute to the long-term success of West Virginia's local newspapers.

"Fifteen years from now, people will still want to know the news and people will still be able to make a living off of giving it to them; there'll just be more ways of telling those stories," he said. "I'm optimistic that someone's going to figure out how to make this work financially."

Multimedia stories produced by students in the West Virginia Uncovered project may be found online at http://wvuncovered.wvu.edu.