Going into high school, I would never in a million years have thought I would end up on the newspaper staff. I had always liked writing, but I never thought that I would do anything major with it or that my writing was good in any capacity. After my freshman year of high school, however, I was approached with the opportunity to join the newspaper staff. I already knew my good friend Justin Gwalteney was a member, so I said, “Why not?”
Newspaper was very scary and intimidating for me to do. I felt really out of place making people participate in an interview with me, especially if I didn’t know them. However, after doing it over and over, I have found that it’s not so scary and that it’s actually kind of fun. It helped me to think about it as getting to know someone or finding out something about someone that you never knew before, rather than just an interview I have to do for the newspaper.
After three years of newspaper, I can honestly say that I’m glad I did it. Throughout my time on staff, I have grown as a person, and my confidence in my work has grown as well. I have placed in regional KSPA contests 4x and placed in state 1x, and none of that would have been possible without the newspaper.
In the end, I’m glad I stuck with the newspaper for three years, and if I went through high school a second time, I would enroll in, newspaper again.
