Embedded Files
I love this story—I believe it's the finest writing I've done, and it had special personal meaning as my 100th story in high school, published in the fall magazine of my senior year. The story is about the old schoolhouse that sits in the center of Creek's quad: its history as a one-room rural school that was later abandoned, sold, and moved to a ranch, but later rediscovered, acquired by my high school, moved to our campus, and restored as a museum. The story is also about the building's uncertain future. Our campus is about to begin a huge rebuild, so I thought it was timely to discuss what might happen to this historic landmark.
The research for the story was intensive. My dad is a history professor at the University of Denver, and he brought me to the Denver Public Library downtown to dig into the archives for old news clippings and historic photos. We struck gold. We found a Rocky Mountain News story about the schoolhouse, published in 1947. We also found the News photographer's mint-condition negatives, which enabled me to illustrate the story with several remarkable photos that had never been published before. I used SNO design elements online to create galleries of old images of children who attended the school. I was able to piece together the history of the schoolhouse using microfilmed newspapers, plus a book published in the 1980s by a former district deputy superintendent, and I constructed a narrative of daily life in the school house using all of these materials.
Stories like these remind me what makes journalism so wonderful. Public records and libraries provide opportunities to dig for information until we find a story. I learned through creating the schoolhouse article that no stories have to remain untold—if we work hard enough to expose them.
Ever since my sophomore year, this pair greeted the school daily with their classic, cheerful message. Even on the grimmest mornings, they always put a smile on my face—and I wasn't alone, because these guys were schoolwide sensations. As they neared graduation, I decided it would be a good time to interview them. When I shared my idea with the features team, everyone thought it was an absolute hit. I thought it would be perfect for the last magazine of their time at Cherry Creek to highlight their contributions to the announcements, the Student Senate, and student body spirit events.
I'm proud of the quotes I got from Dex and Charlie, and also some great words from an administrator who had worked closely with them for years.
The page was also fun to design, with some childlike coloring crayon elements at the top. On the bottom we had a feature image that I took of the pair speaking into the mic for one of their final morning announcements.
There is no doubt that the Ukraine war began to fade from the spotlight as events like the presidential election and the Israel-Hamas conflict overshadowed it—but a group of students at Creek wanted to change that. They sold crafts like flowers and matryoshka dolls and donated the funds to a local organization that would send supplies to Ukrainians. I found their cause valiant. They wanted to make a difference, even if it was just through this limited effort. Club members knew (as they explained to me) that their contributions would be small in the grand scheme of things—but they wanted to show that the school still cared, and that eyes were still on Ukraine. This was perhaps the smallest story I covered that year: just a student-run stand selling handmade flowers. But it mattered to me to tell their story of initiative and commitment.
This story was featured in my winning CSMA Reporter of the Year portfolio.
When students at Creek's feeder school, Campus Middle School, drew swastikas on themselves after a Holocaust education program, the Union Street Journal decided to make our next magazine cover story about antisemitism in schools and nationwide. Our Editor-in-Chief reported on the school angle, and I took an approach of exploring pop culture's effects on the issue. I talked to members and the sponsor of our school's Jewish Student Connections club, making sure to focus on celebrities like Kanye West and Elon Musk, who were in the center of national stories about antisemitism. Musk had opened the door, through his social media platform X, for many antisemitic comments, while West had tweeted remarks that went viral for threatening Jews. I wrote about the ethical dilemma of monetarily supporting those celebrities through products like Teslas, Yeezys, or Twitter Blue. Because the regional branch of the Anti-Defamation League was getting involved in the uproar at Campus, I called the Denver office. I interviewed the regional director, who provided vital expertise about the topic of antisemitism relating to social media. He remains one of my essential contacts for any reporting I’ve done on issues related to antisemitism. I hoped the story would highlight how pop culture had created such an impact in schools, especially where celebrities have an outsize influence on student life. I was proud to bring this important issue to the spotlight in our school.
This story won First Place (Lifestyle News Coverage) from CSMA and Best of SNO honors.
Originally, I interviewed Michael to learn about his organization of a local TEDx event that was marketed towards Creek students. Only when we got into our conversation did I realize just how special his story was. Before he even got into hosting TEDx, his interest in TED was sparked by his own struggles during COVID. I wanted to tell this story aside from the TEDx article because it was so compelling. Unfortunately, I ran into troubles contacting one of his friends in TEDx, and I had to scrap that interview because my deadline was nearing. Otherwise, the sources served their roles perfectly, and I'm quite proud of this piece.
I always tell my writers that the best way to find stories is to keep an ear open and look in the most obvious places—the story might be in front of you all along. My biology teacher had become well-known for his skills in teaching and coaching golf. Every day, he uses his past experiences from graduate school and the expertise he earned through completing his Ph.D. I talked to some of his other students and members of the golf team, and I used the insider perspective I'd gotten from being in his class each day to talk about his teaching style. I also took the feature image to represent his two spheres of knowledge at Creek.
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