Leadership is a crucial skill to develop as it helps in many areas of life, including employment, collegiate life, and academics. In journalism, leadership is an essential quality that all of the editors must possess in order to communicate efficiently and effectively with the rest of the staff. The Editor-in-Chief, especially, needs to have the patience, insight, and determination in order to successfully guide their team.

The CavChron is fortunate enough to have a capable Editor-in-Chief of our own, Teresa Randlett ‘16, meets and surpasses all of these necessary qualities. As a leader, peer editor, and mentor, she guides our crew through ruts and rivets as we work towards our ultimate goal of strengthening and maturing our publication with daily new content and creativity.

“If it weren’t for the tough times, we never would have gotten to where we are now,” Randlett stated.

In the first semester of her junior year, Randlett was initiated into the CavChron crew as a Journalism 1 student. Seated across from her in the production room was the Editor-in-Chief at the time, Julie Christie, graduate of class 2015. Randlett stated, “I began to see how a work room worked, how pieces were created… journalism class became the highlight of my day.”

Then, in her second semester of junior year, Randlett began to figure out how to operate as an editor. “I was helping Natalie Haytayan as the assistant A&E Editor,” Randlett shared, “I  watched what she did and that is exactly how I learned to be a section editor.”

Towards the end of second semester, during the last couple of months of junior year, Randlett was approached by Christie and Journalism Advisor Lin Illingworth. She was offered the position of the Editor-in-Chief, as it became her newfound passion.

“I accepted,” Randlett stated, “and spent that last of my junior year with Julie picking up tips and tricks of the business.”

“When I went into it [the] next year I realized I can’t be a carbon copy of the leader before me,” Randlett confirmed, “and that with each new leader and with each new group, a vibe is created/figured out that works best for that group and leader in order to make the most progress.”

While Randlett cherishes her times here at the paper, she isn’t sure if she will pursue just Journalism while attending St. John’s University in New York City next year; instead, she will  explore the Communications field instead.

“Even if I don’t end up in journalism specifically, the field of Communications has so much to offer in feeding my passion,” Randlett stated “She is also considering branching out within Communications: “I [see] myself going into one of the sub-fields of media [and] broadcasting.”

Randlett agrees that the skills acquired in Journalism can be used outside of the classroom, adding, “I could study journalism and apply it to fashion advertisement–that’s what so great about the field: skills from one sub-field can be transferred to another.”

As an online, twenty-first century journalism publication, The CavChron needs a person to manage everything online. Handling the site’s troubles and constantly improving the layout, Managing Editor and Webmaster, Michaela Dinman ‘16 works tirelessly to keep The CavChron’s website in peak shape.

As well as managing the website’s content and the infrequent white space around it, Dinman is currently “working on trying to make [the website] more responsive based on the variety of content in the different sections”.

Spending most of her time managing what everyone gets to see, Dinman works quite a bit behind the scenes with coding. She is well versed in HTML and CSS, which she taught herself in order to design an email template, and the well-known programming language Java.

Dinman’s efforts are felt constantly in the journalism room’s daily happenings.

In early October of 2015,several students ran into a problem while working on an article. Titled “Babies and Brides”, the large composition was to be made up of several other short articles on the different teachers in the building who had recently announced a baby or tied the knot with their significant other.

The CavChron website has seen its best year yet in 2015-2016. With the help of each CavChron journalist and consistent management from Dinman, new, exciting articles with creative, never before seen layouts and visuals are surfacing on the site.

The career of a professional photographer is one full of adventure, soul, and art. At Hollis Brookline High School, one senior leaped and bounded ahead of himself to create sharp imagery as an everyday hobby.

Matt Harmon ‘16 is an astute photographer who is both the lead photographer for the yearbook staff and who takes photos as a hobby, just for his own fun. He takes his photography very seriously and always makes sure that he will produce the best quality photos around town. If you notice any of the artwork displayed in the HBHS library, you might be shocked to hear that those beautiful works of art came from Harmon’s camera genius.

“I guess you could say from a young age, I have traveled all around the country,” Harmon stated. “My dad is a geologist and has taken me to all of the national parks trying to find fossils, cool rocks and gems, stuff like that.” As a result, Harmon was able to travel all around the country, photographing places many people only dream of seeing.

Harmon added, “I have a scrapbook full of these pictures. I became obsessed with these types of pictures, so then I started taking these types of pictures wherever I went.”

Although he is a dedicated photographer, Harmon has other plans beyond high school and photography. “My plans are to study at the University of Maine and study new media and minor in film and environmental studies,” Harmon said. “I hope to become a National Geographic fellow when I grow up, it is one of my main goals. I know it is a tough goal, but if you are passionate about anything, failure is never an option.”

“[Photography] is a way you can express feeling. I guess you could say [that] for me, being a traveler, [it] has made me able to see all of these beautiful moments that most people have never been able to experience.” Harmon stated. “I love to distribute these forms of beauty through the form of photography. Most people don’t get to see them, and I want people to care about the outside world as much as I do.”
Next time you take a walk into the library at HBHS, take a look around for Harmon’s work, or better yet, give him a shout-out and he’ll be sure to tell you all about his latest projects.

Niki Maragos ‘16 is what you would call the video wizard of The CavChron. She’s been producing and editing videos since 2011. Outside of The CavChron, Maragos runs a popular

YouTube page, which she has shared to be one of her favorite hobbies.

She started off simple, using Microsoft Movie Maker, and has been advancing forward into more complex and professional editing programs throughout the years. For example, when Maragos acquired her first Macbook in 2012, she immediately switched to iMovie.

Now Maragos uses Final Cut Pro X, a program used by some professionals.

Maragos has been a huge part of The CavChron since 2014, with 15 articles now written and many video articles also up. This school year she has been put in charge of the features section as editor.

As for the CavChron, Maragos is leading the way with video. She likes to use video, especially for the paper. She explained how she thinks it’s a great tool to enhance the viewer’s experience.

In the past, she has learned that people would rather listen and watch than read. When asked about using the video she said “I really like that The CavChron is slowly integrating video into our site because I think it shows that we are really looking to stay ahead with the world of media and keep our journalists up to date.”

Maragos will soon be going off to High Point University to study journalism, hoping to make her outstanding and positive mark in the field of media. With the Media Fellowship she recently received, she will have almost everything she could need to make her dreams come true at her disposal.

She hopes that when she leaves The CavChron, the video aspect of the continually growing website will prosper and flourish without her expert touch.