Cedar Rapids Washington is home to top reporter

CEDAR RAPIDS — Molly Hunter only started working for Washington High School's newspaper, The Surveyor, during her junior year.

'I tried lots of activities my freshman and sophomore years, but I didn't find anything that really stuck with me,' said Hunter, who now is a senior and serves as the newspaper's editor-in-chief. 'I was just trying lots of things at the time, trying to find where I fit.'

Where she fit, she realized, was journalism. And she quickly accrued recognition for her work.

'Her first story she ever wrote for us won second place, best news story, from (the Iowa High School Press Association) for the spring newspaper contest,' said Kyle Phillips, a language arts and English teacher at the school who also serves as The Surveyor's adviser.

This spring, Hunter was named the 2016 Iowa High School Journalist of the Year by the Journalism Education Association and the Iowa High School Press Association. In addition to a prize of $200, she qualified for the National Journalist of the Year competition, the winner of which will be announced Saturday at the National High School Journalism Convention in Los Angeles.

Judges for the Iowa contest singled out Hunter's coverage of problems with asbestos removal last year at Washington High School.

'This was good investigative and explanatory reporting that has local but also statewide impact,' they wrote.

Hunter said the asbestos article was really challenging to write.

'This wasn't something that had been covered by other news media in the area, so it wasn't something where I could get a sense of what was going on from anybody else,' she said. 'It was also hard because I had never come against this obstacle of 'I want to interview certain people but those people don't want to be interviewed by me.''

Hunter said she's really proud of being named Iowa High School Journalist of the Year, but credited others for much of her success.

'You can't get that kind of honor without having a really great staff,' Hunter said. 'So I think it says a lot about our writers and our editors and our photographers and everybody that I was able to put together a portfolio that shone as it did. I wouldn't have been able to do that if I hadn't had people that were dedicated.

'I hope it says something that being editor-in-chief this year and having that honor ... I hope I've laid really good groundwork for the future, so that when I graduate there still will be people here that know what they're doing and feel confident,' she added.

Hunter said she plans to go to the University of Iowa and major in journalism.

'You get to go places and interview and meet people you've never met before and you get to hear so many opinions, and I just really like that,' she said of her chosen field. 'And you get to learn, you learn so much ... sometimes you have to become an expert at something like asbestos that you never had to know about before. It's an opportunity to learn every single day.'

Phillips said seeing a student continue to write for publication after high school is 'the best feeling' he could ask for as a journalism teacher.

'I know that Molly is going to go on and do some really good stuff,' he said.