Home Personal Narrative Reporting and Writing WEB and Social Media Law, Ethics and News Literacy Leadership and Team Building Marketing and Audience Engagement Designs Photojournalism Broadcast Journalism

Stories Written

I love writing. Writing allows me to express myself, but also those around me. Seeing people's reaction to the stories I write about them is one of the greatest feelings in the world. Writing started my passion for journalism. I think all journalistic stories can be summarized by Peter Parker’s late Uncle Ben, "With great power, comes great responsibility." Below are some of the top stories published during my time on staff.

PUBLISHED STORIES

Features

FHNtoday.com •

Music, Basketball and a Fresh Start in St. Louis for FHN Para Sirnz Yurihoward

Being on your own in a place where you have no friends and family to rely on seems like something straight out of a nightmare. For para Sirnz Yurihoward, this has been his life since he was a teenager. Originally from Cameroon, Africa, Yurihoward found comfort in playing basketball and hit a lucky break when he was 15.

“When I was 15, a scout actually came and saw me play and they liked me so much they offered me a $50,000 scholarship,” Yurihoward said. “The catch was it was for a boarding scho
FHNtoday.com •

The Leible Family Decorates Their House Every Year with Christmas Lights

Raising a child is one of the greatest experiences most people experience in their lifetime. So, when Stacy and Bob Leible lost their son Caleb in 2011 at birth, their grief and shock was understandably enormous.

The Leibles worked to raise awareness for families like theirs by doing things like selling chocolate in the years that followed. When their daughter began asking for her parents to put up a light display, Bob and Stacy used this request and created an idea that has stuck for the past
FHNtoday.com •

Katie Head Works to Fill the Shoes of Her Brother in Distance Running

Freshman Katie Head joined the cross country and track team this year with big shoes to fill since her brother junior Andrew Head is one of the top distance runners for the school. Katie spends six days a week practicing during the track and cross country season as well as practicing during the off seasons. Her hard work and dedication makes her stand out as one of the top female athletes on the track team.

“I feel like I have high pressure put on me because I’m Andrew’s sister,” Katie said. “I
FHNtoday.com •

FHN Lunches Will Cost Money Again Starting in the 2022-2023 School Year

Ever since the beginning of the COVID school era, an executive decision was made that all school lunches would be made free indefinitely. Since then, it’s been widely regarded as a great feature that all students would benefit from. However, higher ups in the district knew this change wasn’t going to be permanent.

“It had to happen at some point, since it’s not exactly sustainable,” Associate principal Erin Stepp said. “It does make me sad because I know more kids were willing to take advantage

Editorials

FHNtoday.com •

The Way to Return to a Normal School Year at FHN is to be Vaccinated [Editorial]

659 days. Dec. 31, 2019. The date that China announced the first known case of what would come to be called COVID-19. The news spread fast throughout the school, students clamoring to joke about getting COVID every time they coughed, and thought nothing of the pandemic that was to sweep across the nation. However, even from the beginning there was always a push for a vaccine, a fix that would stop the quarantines and lockdowns. Francis Howell North students can lead that effort by receiving the
FHNtoday.com •

Changes Need to be Made to Improve the Climate at FHN [Editorial]

It seems most people at FHN are stuck in a negative mindset. It’s become a problem. People don’t really want to come to this school anymore and that’s not really a good thing. Something clearly needs to change so that we can go back to being a place people actually want to attend. We need to work together to create a better environment for this school. Whenever you ask students about FHN, some say that this school sucks. But many are saying negative things like this because others around them ar
FHNtoday.com •

The Changes Made to North Have Improved the School Environment [EDITORIAL]

Since the school year began in late August, North has seen many positive changes in the school atmosphere. Students and teachers alike have seemed to be enjoying coming to school more than previous years. However, in order to keep the positive energy going, it’s going to take everyone at North working collectively to keep the positive energy flowing. There’s a lot of positive things going on at North and instead of focusing on the negatives, we should be putting our energy into making North more
FHNtoday.com •

Francis Howell Board of Education to Review Racism Resolution [Editorial]

Making everyone, regardless of their background, feel safe and seen at every building in the Francis Howell School District should be a top priority. Although, at times some members of the community feel as if it’s just a second thought. Over the summer, the school board passed a new policy that allows for resolutions to be automatically nulled after 75 days when the majority of the current board wasn’t part of their creation process. The Board should be reviewing each of these resolutions and e

Serious Topics

Not everything I have written has been cheery and positive. Sometimes I have had to write about the hard topics that life or society hands us. These stories need to be told. As a journalist, I know it is my responsibility to tell them. Below are four of the more serious topics I have covered.


FHNtoday.com •

10th Grader Jayln Carson Passes

On March 11, FHN sophomore Jayln Carson passed away from complications due to Leukemia. Jayln was 16 years old at the time of her passing. Jayln was the oldest of nine children and loved cooking in her free time and often cooked meals for her younger siblings.

Jayln and her mother, Erica, had a very close relationship and Erica remembers her daughter as a sweet and caring soul. Erica hosted a sweet 16 party for Jayln in November of last year and made the party as special as possible for Jayln w
FHNtoday.com •

The Fairness of Blaming Violent Video Games for Violence

Ever since the release of video games, such as the first Mortal Kombat game in 1992 or Grand Theft Auto in 1997, it has been highly debated whether or not violent video games correlate with violence. Certain people have gone as far as to contribute the uprising in more graphic video games as a factor to children and teenagers committing violent crimes.

“I absolutely don’t see any sort of connection between more violent video games and violence in children and teenagers,” AP Psychology teacher S
FHNtoday.com •

How AI is Affecting Everyday Life and the Fears it Brings

Since the likes of “Terminator”, “Tron” or the “Matrix” came out in the late twentieth century, the fear of technology taking over and becoming a threat to humanity has grown exponentially. However, FHN engineering teacher Michael Green believes these fears can be summed up as mass hysteria about something people don’t truly understand.

“The term AI is Hollywood,” Green said. “The fear people have about it comes from all the false media being produced about it. AI has its limits and will only w
FHNtoday.com •

Addiction Kills [Personal Column]

I feel as if I’ve been exposed to the concept of addiction long before most children were. For as long as I can remember, members of my family who I would see on a near-weekly basis would chainsmoke nearly every single time I saw them. To make things worse, I had really bad asthma as a child so being exposed to the smoke would make it to where I almost couldn’t breathe if I was around them.

As I grew older I started to move away from people anytime they would smoke near me. I always thought to