I was born into the news industry. In my earliest memories of wandering the halls of The Columbian, I remember seeing the massive printing press zip rolls of blank paper through its cylinders, shaking the room with the smell of the mechanical fluid and ink mixture in the air.
It was magic.
As the new editor of The Columbian, I want to introduce myself and my story to the readers so you can understand why I chose this path.
In childhood, I learned to find a middle ground on the political spectrum, like my parents, who both served on The Columbian’s Editorial Board. I learned the ways of a good office culture. And I saw firsthand the impact of the newspaper.
As a student at Fisher’s Landing Elementary School, a substitute teacher began to rant about an editorial The Columbian had written about firefighter pay. The teacher called the paper “The Scumlumbian,” and all my classmates turned to look at me to see my reaction. Weeks later, she found out and apologized.
I interned at The Columbian during summer vacations from school, shooting video alongside reporters and photographers, then going back to the newsroom to spend hours clipping and editing the footage.
When I was 15, The Columbian published a story on the front page about a teen’s death in a “skitching” crash. The teen was riding a skateboard while holding onto a moving car and was killed. We published a photo of the teen’s grieving mother at the scene of the crash.
The next day, I joined a reporter and a photographer to write a story about the grieving family and friends. The victim’s aunt met us in the parking lot. She was furious. How could we have published the picture of the mother?
My colleagues and I turned to leave, but the mother caught up to us. She said that she wanted us to write these stories because the community needed to learn from this tragedy. She invited us back to finish the story.
Recession changes
When the Great Recession hit in 2008, I saw the massive struggle my father went through to keep The Columbian alive. I veered away from my interest in the business. My path back to the news industry was a winding road.
I had attended Shahala Middle School and Mountain View High School.
I remember my history teacher Mr. Johnston holding up a pen to the class and saying, “This tool can change the world.”
After my freshman year, most of my friends from Shahala went to the newly opened Union High School, but we lived outside the boundaries for the new school.
Some families found loopholes, such as renting an apartment inside Union boundaries. My parents were firm that we weren’t going to veer from our ethics by doing that, so I went to Mountain View. But I saw that people can cheat systems, especially if they have money to do so.
After my second year at Mountain View, I wasn’t happy, so my parents allowed me to attend a boarding school in rural New Hampshire for two years. The school, New Hampton, had a few hundred students, and I lived in a dorm with the hockey team.
One day, after I graduated from high school, I was driving to Mount Hood and a truck in front of me flipped and landed sideways in the snow. I helped pull a man and his wife out of the truck through the driver’s side door.
Feeling a sense of purpose, I decided I wanted to pursue mountain ski patrol, so I enrolled in emergency medical technician training at Portland Community College. Although I never worked as an EMT, through my internships I realized I felt a similar sense of purpose when I was interviewing people suffering medical trauma. I had a few traumatic experiences, including a shift in an emergency room in a Portland hospital, where people were rushed in with gnarly wounds and diseases.
I also studied business and entrepreneurship. My business instructor would toss dollar coins to anyone who could answer questions he asked of the class. Once, he asked what nepotism meant. I was the only one who knew: Favoritism of friends or family in a business. I caught that dollar coin. Nepotism is something that my parents wanted me to understand because every family business deals with it. If I had a genuine interest in the industry, worked hard and proved myself at another publication, I could overcome it.
Story that made the difference
That same business instructor asked the class to write a story about someone who has an impact on us. He singled out the story I wrote to read to the class because it stood out.
The story was about a disciplinarian at the New Hampton School named Mr. Elkins — all the students called him Elk. He was the one to punish students if they broke the school’s strict rules, such as missing one of a dozen check-ins throughout the day.
I stayed off his radar for the most part until my time at the school was nearing an end and I started skipping classes. Elk called me into his office a month before school was over, and I thought he was going to kick me out. He sat me down and told me that I needed to finish strong. He let me go with no punishment. I will never forget that.
After reading that story to my class, I knew that I wanted to pursue writing, and my father suggested I join the newsroom for a reporting internship.
The next summer, I filled in for the City Hall reporter who was on maternity leave. I was thrown into the deep end. I covered Vancouver City Council meetings and once reported on Anne McEnerny-Ogle when she was a city councilor handing out fruit to students — she wanted to be called Apricot Anne.
Part two will publish next week.
