Joelle's Journal
By Joelle Gendzel
By Joelle Gendzel
As my final year at Pioneer comes to a close, I have taken some time to reflect on my high school experience. More specifically, writing for the Pony Express. Throughout my life, I have bounced between many extracurricular activities, from dance classes to the cheer team to service clubs, but none have ever really stuck. Writing for the school paper for the first time last year opened my eyes to a new passion— journalism. Covering new stories allowed me to be more involved at Pioneer than I ever was before.
Different stories took me from standardized testing to student protests of the Fellowship of Christian Athletes to COVID-19 and school shutdowns from Pioneer’s perspective. Even though not every topic sounded the most interesting at first glance, I learned everything has a story worth telling.
For the first time in high school, I felt like there really was a purpose to what I was doing. Keeping students informed about their school community is an incredibly important job, one that in many situations seemed to be primarily performed by the newspaper. Despite being away from campus for almost an entire school year, our staff covered debates surrounding police on campus, families protesting to bring back school sport, a lawsuit against the district and so much more.
Not allowing distance learning to deter us, the Pony Express staff delivered to our readers the information they needed during these unusual times. I am incredibly honored to have spent two years on the staff of such an amazing publication. And to whoever reads this column, next year’s going to be even better!
Different stories took me from standardized testing to student protests of the Fellowship of Christian Athletes to COVID-19 and school shutdowns from Pioneer’s perspective. Even though not every topic sounded the most interesting at first glance, I learned everything has a story worth telling.
For the first time in high school, I felt like there really was a purpose to what I was doing. Keeping students informed about their school community is an incredibly important job, one that in many situations seemed to be primarily performed by the newspaper. Despite being away from campus for almost an entire school year, our staff covered debates surrounding police on campus, families protesting to bring back school sport, a lawsuit against the district and so much more.
Not allowing distance learning to deter us, the Pony Express staff delivered to our readers the information they needed during these unusual times. I am incredibly honored to have spent two years on the staff of such an amazing publication. And to whoever reads this column, next year’s going to be even better!