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PROFILES
These are the stories I live for — the ones that change how you look at a person or subject. I found that almost everybody had something beautiful or ugly eating them up, or at least nibbling a bit at their psyche. I wouldn’t know if I didn’t ask about it.
Once I started asking questions, I found new and exciting insights that change my angle completely and put a new lens on student life.
I created this interactive package based on one by the New York Times, but with a student life spin. It entailed a week of polls at SME — both physically and digitally — asking them for the three most positively impactful (not necessarily popular) students in the school. We took the top 18 resulting names and profiled them.
I wrote two of the stories, co-wrote two others, edited each profile and packaged the project itself online. I'm still in contact with nearly all of the subjects I didn't know going into the project and established connections to other potential future sources by knowing them.
18 Under 18
*2018 Quill & Scroll National Profile Award finalist
Auggie Hyde is a positive guy, but he doesn't shy away from the reality of depression. He's a transgender man that helms SME Zine Club and sings and plays guitar for Lawrence-based indie rock band LK Ultra. He has a painful past peppered with moments of beauty.
I originally wrote a 700-word story on the positive impact he had at East, but it strayed from the real story — his progression.
Over the holiday, I wrote over 2000 words on him, his band, his past and his future. It's an inspiring story of keeping love, fighting off hate and holding close the family you choose.
Auggie Hyde
To Rob, it's an obligation. To Will, it's a "civic duty." But to all of them, it's the most fun they've had in a while.
This is the SME Pizza Review Club — a group of boys hellbent on providing East with their opinions of the pizza every day during first lunch. There's a lot to unpack with each review: "rippage, sauce trenches, sauce bubbles" and much more commentary.
I spent a few lunch periods with the pizza review boys and collaborated with a videographer to create both a profile and video profile.
The Pizza Review Club
Caroline knew for awhile she'd want a gap year before attending a premiere art school. She had no clue that it would take her to lengths spanning from Colorado to Africa.
This senior profile was one of the first substantial profiles I wrote and one of the most concise as well.
Mark Twain had a point when he noted the difficulty of writing short, not long — an important skill I learned on this story was finding the important content and magnifying it.
Senior Profile: Caroline Edge
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