Recently, I have had the pleasure of attending the JEA/NSPA High School Journalism Convention which took place in Boston, Mass.. I, along with nearly 20 other Sequoit Media staffers, touched down at Logan International Airport around 6 p.m. on a chilly Wednesday evening. We immediately needed to purchase every sweatshirt that said “Boston” on it before we could even reach the bathroom 20 feet from our gate (God bless our advisers’ souls).
I was already excited to learn about the rich history of Boston, but when I saw a real subway with my very own eyes, I was ecstatic; fun fact, Boston is home to the first ever subway system in the U.S. (this was news to me). Our advisers frantically guided us from subway to subway until we reached our hotel and we all headed out to celebrate with an overpriced dinner.
That next morning I did not want to waste any of my sightseeing time so I woke up at 4 a.m. and headed down to the lobby. I decided to work on my homework which the hotel staff found very amusing before I began exploring the hotel. Our specific hotel was connected to an extremely large convention center, along with a mall and various other buildings. After exploring the mall, I entered the convention center. It felt very eerie to me to be walking completely alone in a place that was soon to be filled with thousands of student journalists just like me.
Once it reached about 6:30 a.m., I decided to grab my Starbucks (which ran out of everything due to the number of teenage girls and sleep-deprived advisers) and then head back up to the hotel rooms to wake everyone up for our Fenway Park baseball stadium tour. The walk was about 15 minutes from our hotel which, mind you, was a very chilly walk. When we arrived at the stadium we were greeted by our tour guide who was a nice man with a heavy Boston accent. We made our way up to the press box which was a sentimental moment for me because I was sitting where many sports journalists with the same passion as me report on baseball games.
Later that evening we decided to hit the city and be tourists. The architecture was for sure my favorite part, wait no, the lobster was definitely my favorite part. Once I got my hands on those $35 lobster rolls it was game over. When we returned to the hotel we rushed to the extremely interesting keynote. It consisted of the Boston Globe’s investigative journalism team that outed priests all over the world for sexual harassment among children. A movie was made after this discovery called “Spotlight,” which is a very good watch and I recommend it.
Friday morning was the convention day which consisted of a lot of running around. I attended multiple classes which provide tons of new ideas for design and infographics but the one that really stuck out to me was titled “Walk the Walk: Lead by Example.” I learned a lot about the struggles of being a leader and how to overcome them. It was exhilarating because, for the first time throughout that whole convention, I felt like a normal human.
When returning home, I really thought about what I had learned from that whole trip which was how grateful I am for my adviser and staff. Boston opened my eyes to how special local news is, so in this issue, I wanted to focus on our lovely hometown, Antioch Ill. Out of all the programs I met there, we were one of the most transparent and down-to-earth groups of people, which I take extreme pride in. In this issue, we learned about Lisa Fisher’s Antioch Traveling Closet and its heartwarming beginning, Mrs. April’s nonprofit organization–Pennies Purpose and Mrs. Awlasewicz’s mind-riddling 9/11 experience.
At the end of the day, my staff and I care about one another and produce outstanding work while doing so similar to how our Antioch community comes together in times of hardship. I hope you all enjoy this issue as much as we enjoyed producing it.
As always, we hope you enjoy
Your editor-in-chief,
Claire Policht.
