Scholastic journalism, or in other words, one of my biggest passions, according to me, is the way of spreading information to the public. In 2020, national scholastic journalism week is, for me, and the Livewire Newsmagazine.The public that reads our writing is usually from Mt. Washington,  Bullitt County and even sometimes spreading further communities.

We need scholastic journalism in this community, more than ever today. It is very important with the majority pretty much always being on their phones. 

In my English class one day we were playing a game. At one point afew people in the class got to choose a topic and then say a fact, or opinion about it.   the topic of Livewire. Livewire is specifically from Bullitt East High School, and so is this class, but when I said, “Livewire,” I would say about half of them didn’t even know what that was, and my teacher had to describe what it is.

The point of me saying that is to show that even our own school doesn’t know about their own news outlet. Therefore, they don’t know about the essentiality of scholastic journalism in our community, and throughout the whole entire nation. There are many unpopular things in the Mt. Washington and Bullitt County communities, and one of my favorite things to do is to take those small things and try to help popularize them. 

I covered the sport of boys golf during the fall season, other than the coach, and the actual golfers themselves, I never saw a single Bullitt East member there. Then I would go to school the next day, and nobody would be talking about the boy’s golf team, and how they did the day before.hey would just be talking about the football or basketball team. So I made it a goal for myself to go to as many boys golf matches I possibly could. tried to cover them as best as I could. For every match that I went to, with me always being the only student journalist from Livewire there, I live-tweeted the match, did interviews after the matches, took photos at the matches and would write down a lot of notes. I did my best covering that sport, and I did the same for the bowling team that I covered during the winter season. Now, to my surprise, after telling all my classes about the boy’s golf team and the bowling team, and how great they were, and what they had accomplished, I started seeing people talk about it. I started seeing people coming up to me and saying, “Great article.” All those articles that I wrote gave people a voice, gave me a voice and gave the teams a voice. This is why the Livewire Newsmagazine is essential to our community.

That is also what keeps me going. Knowing that I have the ability to give people a voice, the ability to give me a voice. I have the ability to tell people what I think about something and the ability to help popularize something that is sometimes looked over. It’s what gives me happiness and the will to keep going. It makes me want to do the best I can when it comes to scholastic journalism. 

Now when it comes to me doing the best that I can for scholastic journalism, I think it does really show. I have a strong work ethic, and there is no question about that, and one of my favorite things about getting to be a student journalist, is getting to open up and meet new people. I loved covering these small sports, and getting to know them, and help, and try to make them popular. However, I cannot wait to cover bigger things in the future, because if there is one thing I love, it’s variety.

There’s something that I have not mentioned yet, that kind of surprises me.That is my other passion. So first I’ll start off with my first ever hobby, or passion, as you could call it, and that is writing books. Not a lot of people can say that their first-ever dream job was to be an author. I started writing small books, at around seven-years-old, and had a blast, until I was about twelve. I then found my next big passion, and my favorite thing, up to this day. 

My current passion, for the last three and a half years, is magic. I remember four years ago, I just kind of knew that I was not going to make it big as an author, so I decided to try and find another hobby. That is when I was watching YouTube videos, and stumbled across something that interested me. I clicked on the video to learn five easy magic tricks, according to the video. Little did I know, at age 12, that that was what was going to really make me who I was. 

Now, yes, I might have had a higher chance of becoming an author, more than a magician. But if there is one thing that I know, was that after around five years of writing small books, it was kind of getting tiring, but as of right now, three and a half years into magic, I am beyond happy. I know that the chances of me making it big as a magician is small, considering there isn’t really that much of a degree you can get in magic, but you just have to keep practicing.  That is something that I can promise to keep doing for both magic, and journalism.

My magic has gotten somewhere. I have performed in my school’s annual talent show, in front of hundreds of people. I have performed in an actual magic show. I have created my own small magic business, “The Magic Duck,” which is now an enormous nickname of mine. Now, last but most certainly not least, the thing that I am most thankful for that magic did, was get me out of my shell. 

Now, that is how I bring it back to scholastic journalism. I am currently a sophomore in high school, I’m 16 years old, and for the first 15 years of my life, I was an introvert. It wasn’t only magic that got me out of my shell, because the first two, and a half years of me doing magic, I was still an introvert. So, whenever people ask me how I turned into an extrovert, from being a full-devoted introvert, I will tell them this, “I can thank my friends, I can thank magic, I can thank me performing in the talent show, but I mainly thank journalism. Journalism is really what got me out of my shell.”

I went to events, that I never thought I would go to. I have gotten to know way more people than I ever thought I would have gotten to know, but most importantly, I have made a friend group that I will never leave. as long as I’m allowed to stay. I think the Livewire Newsmagazine for so many things, and I am beyond grateful to be accepted into the family, in which it is. I have made friends with the boy’s golf and bowling team, that I probably never would have met if it wasn’t for Livewire. I have just overall made friends with so many people, that I probably wouldn’t have if it wasn’t for journalism. I am so grateful for the Livewire, and I am grateful for scholastic journalism being a thing. I can’t think of a better way to close it off, than: Thank you scholastic journalism, for giving me the opportunity to help popularize things, for helping me become an extrovert, for getting me the chance to meet some amazing people and for the chance to be a part of such an amazing family.