Senior Rachel Santos has left her mark on Portage High School after serving as the editor-in-chief of the student run newspaper, the Pow Wow, for the last two years. Santos is committed to making sure that the students of PHS have a quality newspaper to read each and every week.
“Being the editor-in-chief of the Pow Wow has been a great experience because I’ve gotten to know how I am as an individual and how I work with other people. I’ve gotten to meet great people and make new friends every year. It has taught me good work ethic and to meet deadlines,” Santos said.
Santos plans on attending Indiana University Purdue University Indianapolis (IUPUI) to study prelaw. She expects to major in political science and minor in journalism.
One of the highlights of Santos’s high school career took place in March, when she found out that she was a finalist for the Indiana High School Press Association Student Journalist of the Year award, which is handed out annually to the most distinguished high school journalist in the state. Santos and fellow PHS senior Kirsten DeMass were two of only ten student-journalists in Indiana to be named finalists.
“It was overwhelming. I was so overwhelmed that I dropped my iPhone and cracked it. I was absolutely honored,” Santos said. “It was a goal that I had set my sophomore year, when I said to [Pow Wow advisor Melissa Deavers-Lowie] that I would be a finalist my senior year.”
Santos is a member of the IHSPA student board, which features high school journalists from around the state. The board meets and puts together events such as the State Convention and the First Amendment Symposium. Santos, who became a member her junior year, was able to personally invite Scott Swan, who is a news anchor at Channel 13 in Indianapolis, to speak at the State Convention.
Although her duties as newspaper editor-in-chief are very time consuming and require tremendous dedication, she has found a way to stay involved in a wide variety of activities. She is a member of the tennis team, works at Schoop’s, participated in the Natural Helpers Retreat her junior year, competed in the Distinguished Young Woman competition and helped organize the Outstanding Young Man event. In addition, Santos has served as the freshmen basketball manager for all four years of high school and is an active member of the school’s most prestigious organization, National Honor Society.
“The thing that I will miss most would have to be my teachers and my peers. I have developed a great relationship with some of my teachers to the point where I’m going to miss them a lot,” she said.
Math teacher Nick Haas, economics teacher Mark Marvin, vocational instructor Bob Phelps and National Honor Society advisors Catherine Nye and Jessica Munden have all made impacts on Santos, but perhaps the faculty member that she works with the most is Pow Wow advisor Melissa Deavers-Lowie.
“This is my fourth year having her as a teacher of some sort, starting with J-1 [beginning journalism] and going into being on staff my sophomore, junior and senior years. She is more of a friend now than a teacher even though she teaches me every day. She’s a great teacher and she’s done a lot for the program,” Santos said.
Another experience that Santos has enjoyed during her high school tenure is taking the Video Production and Media Studies vocational class at the Porter County Career Center.
“It’s a great way to meet people outside of Portage High School. It’s also made my high school career a lot more enjoyable because I’m not stuck in the same classrooms every day.”
For the first time ever, PHS Publications students have the opportunity to attend the National Journalism Convention, which is being held in Seattle later this month. Santos is one of seven students who will make the trip.
“Since I’m graduating soon and I’m leaving, I get to be with my staff members during the trip. It will be a nice way to kind of go out with a bang. We will get to spend time together before I graduate,” Santos said.