Leadership
I borrow my leadership philosophy from soccer: lead from the front. In soccer, the phrase describes a team’s striker leading the team by scoring goals themselves. I’m not someone who can sit back and let others take on the majority of the work – something in my wiring compels me to do the impactful journalism our community needs. I need to push myself to write, photograph, edit, present, do everything at a high standard, even if that means taking on more responsibility than my classmates. I believe that over time, this sets an example for the staff and helps raise their levels, too.
Staffers Say
One thing about me: I despise inauthenticity. So, when I show this Staffers Say section, I'll show you the entire truth, not just a cherry-picked version of reality. Here's what I did: I sent out a Google Form asking OMG staffers four questions about my leadership, asking them to be fully honest, even if they had constructive criticism. I include every response I got to each question (no question was required). See the presentation below for the responses.
Leadership Roles
Outside of my leadership role on the ODYSSEY staff, I've taken on several leadership roles within other media organizations throughout the country. These roles aren't just a resume line to me, but an opportunity to improve scholastic journalism holistically.
SIPA President
I was the Southern Interscholastic Press Association President for the 2024-25 school year after running for election during my junior year. My capital 'S' Southern identity is very important to me, so as I helped to plan the 2025 convention, I wanted to emphasize the sense of place that united Southern journalists. The eventual conference theme, "Southern Storytelling," was a passion project of mine and synthesized what I believe is important about SIPA.
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Come up with the convention theme ("Southern Storytelling")
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Participate in several 6-hour SIPA Executive Committee Meetings to plan the convention and set goals for the organization
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Participate in several 30-minute check-ins with Scholastic Media Program coordinator Amy Smedberg to plan student activities
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Give an introductory address at the 2025 SIPA banquet
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Give a plenary speech at the 2024 SIPA awards show
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Introduce SIPA's Administrator of the Year
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Design the convention t-shirt
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Create convention trivia
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Represent SIPA at local and national conferences
My Duties
GSPA Ambassador
As a junior, I applied to be an ambassador for the Georgia Scholastic Press Association. I'd been attending GSPA for several years by this point and felt a deep connection to the program; as such, I wanted to give back. As an ambassador, I worked closely with GSPA director Stephanie Moreno to aid conference operations and represent the GSPA brand.
My Duties
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Present my session "How to play a great game: coverage" with Photography Editor Aza Khan
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Create social media content during the course of the convention
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Promote the GSPA convention on social media and facilitate attendance
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Introduce speakers and awards at the 2024 spring GSPA Awards Banquet
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Represent the GSPA brand at regional and national conferences
Student Press Corps Teen Advisory Board Member
I had no idea what the Student Press Corps, Kidizenship, or the Students United News Network was when I got an email from Vanderbilt professor Amanda Little in August. She invited me to apply to join the Student Press Corps Teen Advisory Board, a group devoted to overseeing the nation's largest organization of scholastic media groups. After I was accepted, I worked alongside similarly passionate peers from all over the country -- from Washington D.C. to San Francisco -- to aggregate content from high school publications and reformat it for a national audience.
My Duties
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Select content from 100+ student publications for spotlight on the SUNN website
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Create social media content to promote our aggregated stories and to explain civics terms such as "executive order"
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Design social media templates for posts and reels that other team members can re-create to maintain branding
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Participate in bi-weekly meetings to plan social media content
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Conceptualize news in a format that appeals to Generation Z
Presentations
Throughout my time as an ODYSSEY editor, I've been fortunate enough to present not just in-class, but at state, regional, and national conventions multiple times. Tangibly, I've grown enormously as a public speaker and communicator from these opportunities, but I'll tell you a secret: deep down, I just enjoy doing them. There's something about repackaging something that's allowed me to succeed into a tangible lesson that makes me happy, whether it's the validation of seeing it recognized or the look on someone's face as it makes a difference in their lives, too. I'm organizing these by presentation, not conference, as I've presented most at multiple conventions. Where possible, I've included the presentation itself, but Canva does not allow embeds on Wix.
How to Play a Great Game: Coverage
Presented with Visuals Coordinator Lucas Donnelly/Photography Editor Aza Khan at...
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The Southern Interscholastic Press Association conference, Columbia, SC, March 2023
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The Georgia Scholastic Press Association fall conference, Athens, GA, October 2023
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The National High School Journalism Convention, Boston, MA, November 2023
Candidly, this presentation was hard for me. It was my first presentation outside of the ODYSSEY class, and I struggled with speaking in front of an audience. However, after the first presentation with then-Visuals Coordinator Lucas Donnelly at SIPA, I steadily improved at GSPA and ultimately at NSPA (though I did present with what I later learned to be a 104 degree fever). Reflecting back, I was so scared of omitting information that the presentation was probably overwhelming and, in places, lacking interactivity. Especially in the first go-round, the slides had too much information on them for anybody to digest. With that said, I used this to grow -- in all future presentations, I kept text on my slides to a maximum of three sentences in large font, while the public speaking experience was huge in growing my confidence.
Getting it Right: Accurate Representation
Presented with Diversity and Representation Editor Peter Atchley at...
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The Georgia Scholastic Press Association fall conference, Athens, GA, October 2024
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The National High School Journalism Convention, Philadelphia, PA, November 2024
This presentation involved me overcoming a series of challenges, but was ultimately my greatest presenting success. The ODYSSEY's Diversity and Representation Editor Peter Atchley pitched the presentation and worked extensively on the slides, but he wasn't comfortable presenting by himself. Because I had advocated for Peter's position and had some experience with DEI, I volunteered, but had to overcome some imposter syndrome to do so. After a so-so trial run at GSPA, Peter and I presented to an audience of roughly 150 students in one of the largest rooms at Philadelphia's NHSJC -- with one microphone. That was daunting, but the preparation I'd put in with Peter and my adviser made me confident even commanding such a large room. Of any presentation, this was most rewarding -- I'd never seen students taking such diligent notes or with so many tangible takeaways.
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From All Angles
Presented with Managing Editor Jane Ripps at...
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The Georgia Scholastic Press Association fall conference, Athens, GA, October 2024
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The National High School Journalism Convention, Philadelphia, PA, November 2024
This presentation was a passion project of mine. At its heart was audience engagement: I'd become very attuned to packaging stories for a high school audience in the magazine and on the website and social media. I wanted to pass on those ideas of convergence content to a larger audience. Of any presentation I've done, I felt this was most professional -- both Jane and I knew exactly what we were going to say and had excellent chemistry with each other. Furthermore, the slides were designed to be as digestible as possible, with interactive elements built in constantly. Unfortunately, the rooms we presented in at GSPA and NSPA were relatively small, but I was proud to present some ideas I felt were somewhat unique to the ODYSSEY on a much larger scale.
How to be a Better Storyteller
Presented with Sports Editor Cooper Jones during OMG Content Redelivery in January 2025​
After attending the National High School Journalism Convention, all ODYSSEY editors are required to pair up with a partner and redeliver a session they saw, gearing it to a high school audience. This presentation was based off one about immersive reporting by Penn State University professor and author Maggie Messitt. I had been captivated by her work and eloquent articulation of how to tell an immersive story and fairly cajoled Cooper, who'd gone with me to her presentation, to redeliver it with me as well. Because I was passionate about the subject matter, I was a strong presenter and devoted a lot of time to the slides. I had to pack a lot of information into the slides (upon reflection, maybe too much information), but I made sure to break up speaking with opportunities for discussion and video embeds. Several members of the ODYSSEY staff said it was their favorite presentation to be re-delivered, which was rewarding.
Journalism Production
Presented alone every day of the 2024-25 school year​
I don't include this presentation to show earth-shattering ideas -- the slides themselves are just a daily breakdown. I include this slideshow, which I'm immensely proud of, to show dedication to routine and commitment to the program. Every day at the start of class, I stand in front of 30 people and break down the day's agenda, go over a mini-lesson (if we have one), update staffers on deadlines, and do whatever else the day requires. I advocated for this responsibility because it would establish my leadership and grow my confidence in public speaking -- and it has, on both counts. Furthermore, this slideshow could be easy to forget about -- for the week, it takes maybe 20 minutes to put together. That said, barring sick days, I have not missed a presenting this slideshow once throughout the year. By always being prepared with this presentation to start the day, I create culture whereby others feel empowered to do the same.
Establishing a Vision
For me, the beginnings of good leadership start with a vision. For me, this takes the form of meticulous planning and metacognition. I critically examine every aspect of our program to see where we're succeeding, but also where we could do a better job -- I keep a running note in my phone titled simply "Improving ODYSSEY" that contains all the ideas I've had to make our operations better. I know I can't implement everything, but when I graduate, I'll pass the note on to the new Leadership Team so they can continue the trend. Here are the results of a few changes I envisioned.
Diversity & Representation
At the end of the 2023-24 school year, my adviser and I identified two major concerns with our program. First, we had problems fact-checking. Our previous Editor-in-Chief, Molly Harwell, had to do a lot of fact-checking during the copy editing phase of magazine production, which resulted in her getting burned out when the issue should really have already been resolved. Secondly, we had continued problems with the accurate representation of our school community, as we underrepresented certain groups in our coverage. Our solution: create a new editorial position devoted to fact-checking stories and monitoring our stakeholder representation. The position has been a tremendous success, taking fact-checking burden off of me and facilitating more equitable coverage of our communities.
Longer Production Cycles
In my junior year this time, I identified a problem with then-Editor-in-Chief Molly Harwell: with the exception of myself and a select few staff members, no one ever turned their drafts in on time. The problem seemed to be not with writing, but with time to report -- as student journalists, staffers' life and school commitments meant that their reporting process went slower than would be ideal. However, to prevent us from having to continually redesign and update our calendar, I advocated for a longer production cycle -- from two weeks to three -- adding a middle draft phase to monitor staffers' work. This was successful -- more staffers got their stories in on time, while ultimately I, as Lead Copy Editor, designed the spring production calendar to fit the new schedule.
The Stakeholder Database
This idea started by identifying a problem once again. This time, it was that no one ever had the contact information for everyone at our school, which is composed of roughly 1800+ students. When conferencing with staffers about why their stories were late, the most often cited reason was that they didn't know where to start with interviews. Borrowing an idea I observed during my internship at The Red and Black, the University of Georgia's student paper, I instituted a Stakeholder Database complete with the names of as many people as our staff knew in our school. These people were organized by affiliation (ex. student government, varsity soccer), giving people who needed stakeholders a leg up in reaching out. The names came with contact information, some relevant background (awards, expertise, personality), and a mutual contact they could reference to make a connection. Over time, the database involved to include teachers, UGA professors, and community members as well, establishing invaluable connections within our audience.
Metacognition
Thinking about the way I think about ODYSSEY has influenced my leadership style greatly. Before high school, I wouldn't have described myself as even remotely reflective, but through ODYSSEY assignments and private reflection, I've used every mistake or roadblock as a lesson to improve in the future.
Editor's Journals
Editor's journals are a monthly assignment designed to open up communication with Mr. Ragsdale, our staff adviser. I've used these extensively over three years of being an editor, using them as places to express frustration, new ideas, or provide a sense of where I'm at socio-emotionally. They also force me to reflect on my work, as I identify places I could do better and set goals for the following month.
Leadership Seminars
Every month, Mr. Ragsdale hosts a Leadership Seminar for the ODYSSEY Editorial Board. These 2.5-hour long sessions are specifically designed to familiarize ourselves with other editors and grow in our roles as leaders. I've used these seminars to develop my editing abilities, as well as to better my understanding of ethics and staff leadership.
Cycle Reflections
At the end of every magazine cycle, the ODYSSEY staff writes a roughly 3-page reflection on their interviewing throughout the cycle. This document asks me to reflect on how I presented myself to community stakeholders, focusing on my growth as a human and a journalist. I use these to externalize my thoughts about my interviewing abilities and to monitor my journalistic growth.
Conference Reflections
Oftentimes, after attending a conference, attendees are asked to reflect on their conference experience. For me, these reflections are less about reaction and more about inspiration and implementation. Following the conclusion of a conference, I always come back energized with new ideas, and these documents allow me to codify my ideas and share them with my adviser.
Project Management
A hallmark of my high school leadership experience has been implementing and managing events for the ODYSSEY. Even as a sophomore, I was working to plan events such as Media Day, which the ODYSSEY had never previously done before. I leveraged my meticulous nature, distaste for ambiguity and communication skills to ensure these events were thoroughly planned and well-executed.
Media Day
I took the idea for Media Day after attending a SIPA session about another school's implementation of the event. As a sophomore Sports Editor, I worked with my adviser to get the event off the ground, coordinating with our staff to ensure we had enough people, but also with coaches, players, the booster club, families, and the Athletic Department. In my year as Sports Editor, I observed tremendous growth -- the 2023 spring Media Day saw all sports attend with several athletes, which proved to be a springboard for future editors to continue the successful tradition.
Press Conferences
Each magazine cycle, I set up a press conference with CCHS administrators to interview regarding our magazine stories. These conferences save everyone a great deal of time, but are difficult to coordinate when considering the availability of five administrators, a publication staff, and adviser. However, through persistent communication and relationships I've established throughout high school, I'm able to set the events up without too much stress. At the conference itself, I ask all staffers to input their questions into a document for ease of asking, while I always ask an opening question to set the tone for the conference and reassure staff members who may be nervous.
Game/Event Coverage
I've coordinated some many game and event coverages that they all run together, but one thing is key for all of them: communication. On the front end, I always set up a group chat to allow constant updated. This chat doesn't just include staffers covering the event, but also the editors who will publish the story and our adviser. I ask everyone to arrive at events a minimum of 30 minutes early, and when needed, set up a ride schedule whereby I or another senior teammate drives younger staffers. Occasionally, if the event is a significant off-campus requirement, I will send an itemized email to families detailing the time commitment and expected arrival/departure times to facilitate success.
Meeting Leadership
Every week, I have three morning meetings to help plan my week with the most crucial people. On Tuesdays at 7:45, I meet exclusively with Mr. Ragsdale to set our strategy for the week. On Thursdays at 7:45, I meet with Mr. Ragsdale and the other members of the Leadership Team (a.k.a Cabinet). On Fridays at 7:30, I meet with the entire Editorial Board. Each meeting allows me to reconnect with editors and strategize for the coming weeks.
Editorial Board
Editorial Board meetings are the most formal of my weekly meetings. On Wednesday afternoons, I solicit input from editors to make the agenda, which always comprises a wellness check-in at the beginning and a DEI check-in at the end, but other than that, depends on the week. For example, during a magazine cycle, I'll use this time to compile updates on stories, while before a convention, the time is used to share information regarding conference schedule and expectations.
Cabinet
Cabinet meetings are less formal, but still important. Oftentimes, the Leadership Team is so stratified throughout the week that we don't get a chance to check in during class, so our Cabinet meetings are helpful to ground ourselves in. Usually, I design these sessions with action in mind, wanting to divvy up responsibilities to keep us on the same page. Often, I'll build in additional time for us to work here, which is always a helpful head-start during a busy day.
Editor-in-Chief
The least formal of any of my meetings, this one functions most basically as a check-in. When Mr. Ragsdale and I have specific items to discuss, we will, but the discussion rarely lasts more than 10-15 minutes. The rest of the time is a work period exclusive to the both of us, where we can catch up on editing or any projects we're both involved in. Furthermore, if we need to meet with a staffer who's been struggling or present someone with an opportunity for additional responsibility, we use this time to do so.
Miscellaneous Duties
Such is the nature of journalism that it feels like I have a new, unexpected task every day. Though many of these are too little to note here (or perhaps to remember), I'll pick out some recurring duties that speak to my leadership.
The Summer Workshop
At the start of the 2024-25 school year, I worked with my adviser and members of my Leadership Team to plan the 2024 Summer Workshop. This workshop is a three-day, intensive event where the entire ODYSSEY staff, including freshmen with no prior journalism experience, come to CCHS to reorient themselves ahead of the school year's beginning. I took on an extremely active role in the workshop this year, aiming to switch up some of the workflow. As such, I set a detailed agenda for each day, planning not only presentations and activities, but also lunch and team building activities. On the last day, I coordinated a press conference with ODYSSEY alumni as a trial run for the school year's beginning.
Award Submissions
Throughout my high school career, I've worked with staff to help submit awards for the cycle. This usually involves an intensive, 90-minute conversation with our adviser to help determine our funding and our Leadership Team to determine which stories are most viable. Sporadically, I've personally helped compile awards into the proper submission format to take the burden off others.
Editing/Grading
This isn't journalistic editing, per se, which is why I've included it here rather than in editing. Going into the start of the school year as EIC, I told my adviser I wanted to have a more active role in leadership; this has included designing, editing and grading non-publication assignments. For example, I give all students a grade for their pitches while providing opportunities for improvement in future work; I do the same for interview reflections. Additionally, I design note-taking assignments for presentations and establish exemplars for a section goals and values assignment, grading both projects to take some pressure of my adviser and help understand where my staff is at.
Emails Galore
If you can think of a reason to send a journalistic email, I've probably sent it. Celebration emails to school staff to recognize student journalists? Yep. Emails to professional journalists to speak at Leadership Seminars? Yes. Outreach requests from community organizations? Like you wouldn't believe. Communication is one of my strengths as a leader, and I've had extensive opportunities to exercise it throughout my high school career.
Final Thoughts: Passing the Torch
I've focused a lot on my duties in this section, but I want to conclude it by talking about everyone else. Frankly, my accomplishments and accolades mean very little to me if I don't leave others in a position to succeed as well. Especially in this, the second semester of my senior year, I've focused on teaching others to inhabit the roles I occupy and take on the responsibilities I have, all the while maintaining an emphasis on being a supportive leader and mentor. In the program's future and the future of the staff that I care about so much, I leave a legacy much longer lasting than anything I could ever do myself.