Journalism

The Barque — Bellevue High School's 100+ year-old student newspaper. Graphic Designer → News Editor → Editor-in-Chief.

The year I joined The Barque, it turned 100 years old — and almost nobody noticed. The quarterly print issues we delivered free to every classroom ended up strewn across the cafeteria floor. A century-old paper, forgotten by its own school.

So in 10th grade, when the vague idea of a website came up, I jumped at it. Only two of us signed on. I planned the layout and sketched the design of every page from scratch; what we thought was a month-long build became a six-month project of bi-weekly meetings in the principal's office — ADA accessibility compliance, parent-council budget approvals, even a review by the district's head of cybersecurity. When it launched, it was the first newspaper-club website in the entire district: thebarquebhs.com. Today it reaches more people than the school even holds.

I became News Editor in 11th grade and now lead the paper as Editor-in-Chief — coordinating tasks and roles for a staff of 30, overseeing four print issues a year (~30 articles each), publishing 2–3 articles online weekly, and setting layout in Adobe InDesign. Under that work, The Barque earned International Second Place in the Quill & Scroll News Media Evaluation — three years running.

~3,000

unique visitors — more than the school holds

18,700+

page views since launch

print issues a year, ~30 articles each

staff members coordinated

Invited Student Press

Microsoft Elevate — Washington Launch

The Barque was invited as official student press to the launch of Microsoft Elevate Washington — Microsoft's “Putting People First” initiative bringing free Copilot, Microsoft 365, and AI learning tools to high school and community college students across the state. We were one of only two school papers in the Seattle region given press access.

I covered the event for the paper: announcements from Microsoft Vice Chair & President Brad Smith, a panel moderated by Trevor Noah with Bellevue School District superintendent Dr. Kelly Aramaki, and interviews on how the program will reach students like ours.