Reporting & writing
Throughout my time of staff, I’ve written for pretty much every section. From covering Iowa law to writing investigative features to authoring opinion columns, I’ve allowed my interests to take me wherever they want. While this is by no means all my work, here are some of my favorites.
All stories were published on wsspaper.com
Feature
April 24, 2025
My friend and I decided to do this story to raise awareness on period stigmas that we had noticed in our community. We interviewed a student with dysmenorrhea (a condition characterized by extremely painful periods), a student with connective tissue disorder, the University of Iowa's founder of their chapter of the Period Education Project and a school nurse. This story won a Best of SNO and was recognized as an IHSPA Story of the Month
May 29, 2025
When a teacher reached out to our advisor about being hit by a West High student on two separate occasions, about a year apart, we knew we had to write about it. I wasn’t originally on the story, but stepped in to help when the writers were struggling. We collected data and interviewed experts, people who have been hit by distracted drivers, and a student who got in a crash due to distracted driving. Through doing this story, we hoped to raise awareness on the risk of driving distracted and published the story in WSS print to get the story in the hands of as many students as possible. This story won a Best of SNO and was published in the May 29 edition of the WSS.
Feb. 28, 2025
I wrote this story after going through the process of getting a 504 plan and realizing how many (stigmas?) existed around being a person with (a disability??) that still succeeded at school with minimal support. I got the opportunity to sit down with three students and talk about their own journeys with a variety of conditions and their processes of getting accommodations. This story won a Best of SNO and received third place for Health/Science in IHSPA’s 2025 Spring Contest.
News
Sept. 30, 2025
I decided to cover this when I got a notification from an editor asking if anyone could go. I had seen the video of a man being arrested at a local restaurant and felt anger at the governments actions along with much of my community. I attended the protest with two other staff members, taking pictures and doing interviews after the rally was over. This story won a Best of SNO and was featured as an IHSPA Story of the Month.
Nov. 7, 2025
I decided to write this story after I saw an Instagram post from the New York Times saying that the Trump Administration would not be distributing SNAP benefits after Nov. 1. I wanted to know how this would impact the people in my community, so I talked to the director of a local food bank to see not only how it would affect people who rely on those benefits, but the organizations that help them. This story won a Best of SNO.
March 11, 2025
This was a story very personal to me as a trans Iowan. I was feeling a lot of frustration at the government and knew that this decision could potentially affect my life. So, I decided to write about it; I knew I couldn’t stop it from passing, but I could inform people about what was happening. I had the opportunity to speak to the mayor of Iowa City and a trans student from West who attended the protest, and both conversations were very meaningful and helped add an emotional depth of the real consequences actions such as these can have on a community. This story won first place local/state news story in IHSPA’s 2025 Spring Contest.
Nov. 19, 2024
My junior year I was on the school board beat. I did this story on a plan to overhaul the district’s elementary school system. I interviewed _. Since it was a long story, I added various forms of multimedia to present information in a more engaging way to break up the long text including an info box, timeline graphic and a clip from the board meeting where they discussed the plan. This story won a Best of SNO.
Opinion & entertainment
Feb. 21, 2025
I’ve always been a big fan of the Heartstopper series. Positive and accurate queer representation in media is hard to find, so Heartstopper’s authentic portrayal meant a lot to me and others in the LGBTQ+ community. For this project I did a podcast with a few other staff members where we sat down and talked about the series. This was also when I discovered that SNO allows gifs to be long-form backgrounds and had one of WSS’s talented artists create an animated background for the story.
Page to screen: "Heartstopper"
Nov. 1, 2025
I’ve always been a big fan of the Heartstopper series. Positive and accurate queer representation in media is hard to find, so Heartstopper’s authentic portrayal meant a lot to me and others in the LGBTQ+ community. For this project I did a podcast with a few other staff members where we sat down and talked about the series. This was also when I discovered that SNO allows GIFs to be long-form backgrounds and had one of WSS’s talented artists create an animated background for the story.
Sports
March 15, 2025
I’ve been a wrestling fan since I was young. So when Iowa was the first Big 10 school to start a sanctioned women’s wrestling team, I was very excited. I also had observed the growth of the support at all different levels in my community, from my high school starting a team my freshman year to the young girls starting to join club teams and wrestle at a younger age. For this story, I spoke with Vanessa Hughes, who is the mother of two wrestlers and a board member of the Iowa Women's Wrestling Club. I also interviewed wrestlers and coaches about their experience with the sport. I attended dual meets at both the high school and college level, and a practice for West's youth club. This story took a long time to report, and I left it and came back to it quite a few times. I’m very grateful I found the motivation to finish it, because it’s one of my favorite stories I’ve written.
This story won a Best of SNO, first place in IHSPA's 2025 spring contest for Multimedia Sports Story, and was NSPA's second place 2025 multimedia sports story of the year.
Dec. 19, 2025
I’m on the girls wrestling beat this year, and have already covered multiple events this season. One of the coolest things I got to cover was an event hosted at Xtreme Arena in Coralville that featured both high school meets and a “friendly” dual meet with Team USA and Team Ukraine. I got to stand right by the mat to take photos of wrestlers I’ve been following for years, which was a really amazing opportunity. I also got to have a conversation with a coach for the Iowa Women’s Wrestling Club and Team USA’s head coach.