Features

As a journalistic-minded person, I am always on the lookout for unusual or cool people to feature. When a student I had multiple classes with kept pulling out his homemade 3D fidget toys and selling them to students, I knew I had found a good story. Sending out a survey to the student body I was able to gain insight on other lucrative student-owned businesses and what kind of jobs my peers hold. The story also had a financial side to it. I reported on how students spend their money, and tips from our finance teacher on why financial literacy is important. The story was for a two-page spread in the print issue so I had to make a feature article relevant to the student body and applicable to their lives. Click here to read Banking on Business. 

As co-writer of this article, the topic of mental health was the main focus of our first issue of the year. This was a subject that had recently affected many people in my school’s community so we had to approach it with a sensitive standpoint but also provide facts on how mental health in teens has declined and what our school was doing about it. This article brought awareness to the struggles some students endure. When I was interviewing people I tried to be as respectful and sensitive towards people as possible and I was pleasantly surprised by how vulnerable people were with me. Click here to read Health in Mind.

This article about student bands at my school is one of my favorites I have ever written. Getting a bunch of cool band kids to respond to emails and show up for interviews was challenging but I learned how to track people down and got insightful answers to my questions. The story won third place for Feature Writing in a KSPA monthly contest.  Click here to read Battle of the Bands.

For our center spread of our Christmas issue this year we picked a theme of service. Getting people to give good interviews that gave good insight into their faith life and why serving others impacts them was a very lengthy process. Going back and asking follow-up questions to gain a student’s full perspective was important when discussing a more sensitive topic. Click here to read Called to Serve.

Though this article is intended to be a light-hearted feature on the rise of fake tans it came with its challenges. Getting people to agree to be interviewed and getting the hand photos was hard but it allowed me to grow in confidence as an interviewer. This also remains one of BMPress’s most viewed stories with 157 people viewing it. Click here to read Caught Orange-Handed.