ELKINS — For my freshmen year of high school at Highland Adventist School, I interned with The Inter-Mountain for two weeks from Jan. 7-17. I’ve always loved writing, although I lean toward fiction, but this was a great opportunity for me to give journalism a try.

My dream is to share my stories through my writing and art, even if I never end up being successful. As long as they reached one person, I’d be happy.

During my time with The Inter-Mountain I did a number of things, like researching for articles, making phone calls, and going out to take pictures. They kindly showed me how they built their newspapers along with how they run things. Five of the small articles I wrote ended up in the newspaper and one of the pictures I took made the front page.

I don’t excel at informative writing so my time with them gave me a chance to go out of my comfort zone and build up other areas in my writing skills. I still much prefer fiction over fact, but it showed me other options I may have in my future, and jobs I could go into as I build up my writing/art career.

I’m thankful to The Inter-Mountain for allowing me to intern with them and teaching me about journalism. Even if I don’t return to The Inter-Mountain I am grateful for the opportunity I received working with them.