A small brag about High School Journalism Institute alumni

This is my fourth year at the

High School Journalism Institute

Another year of early mornings, hot Corvallis weather and dining hall burgers that are JUST legally burgers.

And despite how much much work the institute is every year, it’s always so worth it.

This year I brought copies of recent Willamette Week and Street Roots newspapers. I brought them not just because they are nice papers, but they also include a nod to HSJI.

Street Roots includes

a story written by Zoe Toperosky

, an alumna of

HSJI in 2022

who worked with

Tyson Alger of The I-5 Corridor

The Willamette Week has

a story by Charlie Bloomer

, who was in

HSJI last year

and worked with

Destiny Johnson

Both Zoe and Charlie are brilliant — to be fair, they were brilliant before they stepped foot in our camp — and had the kind of go-getter attitude that made all of us start sweating for our future jobs.

Charlie was the

Oregon Journalism Education Association high school journalist of the year

. She was just ahead of Claire Coffey, who is also an alumna of HSJI.

I bought the recent Willamette Week and Street Roots copies because I knew they included Charlie and Zoe’s stories, and I wanted them to sit here at HSJI as a reminder that this camp really works.

It takes in kids that have a small love for journalism and turns that into a big love for journalism. It takes smart kids and turns them into professionals.

And it’s happened for decades. My longtime friend Eder Campuzano is an alumnus of HSJI from nearly 20 years ago. So are my friends and colleagues like Samantha Matsumoto and Em Chan.

The camp works. You have to put up with a lot — like a burger with bun seemingly made of papier-mâché — but the end result is worth it.