One great pleasure of my job has been inspiring the next generation of journalists

Posoh ("hello" in Menominee) and waewaenen ("thank you") for reading the First Nations newsletter.

Since starting this beat in 2020, I've been volunteering as a mentor/adviser/editor for the Green Bay East High School student newspaper, the Hi-Light.

It has been a great pleasure helping to guide potential future journalists early in their career.

Besides offering practical advice on their articles, I try to convey the importance of journalism to inform our democracy. One of the first actions dictators do when coming to power is censor the press, not take away guns from citizens.

I also try to explain the importance of giving voice to the voiceless and always seeking the truth from all sides.

The students, two teacher advisers and I would meet once a week to discuss our work to be posted on the newspaper’s website. Anywhere between four and 10 student reporters would show up every week eager to write their next story.

The pandemic again this year played a major role in deciding which stories to cover. Students covered everything from the need, or no need, to continue wearing masks in school to quarterback Aaron Rodgers’ stance on the vaccine and his position as a role model.

The students reviewed TV shows, movies, books and school musicals. They also profiled other students and teachers who were doing amazing things.

Lydia Robinson, for example, profiled Robert Kumpula, a security worker at the school who’s a regular marathon runner.

“I just came because of the donuts,” Robinson said jokingly.

One of the teacher advisers, Susan Carlson, would bring a box of donuts to every meeting.

“I’m not the best writer, so I became involved in the newspaper to help me be better,” she said.

Student reporter Zola Kambandu-Schilz wrote about the Green Bay East High School musical “The Drowsy Chaperone.” She reported the student performers’ excitement of being back on stage after taking a hiatus because of the pandemic.

The cast and crew overcame the constraints of losing rehearsal time because of a COVID-19 surge.

“I joined the newspaper because my sister had been part of it and highly recommended it,” Kambandu-Schilz said. “I have an interest in becoming a journalist.”

One of Carolina Ayvar Visoso’s articles was about how students at Green Bay East exceeded expectations on their overall school report card.

An avid reader, she said she’s found writing news articles a little different and interesting and enjoys the interviewing, reporting and writing process.

Included in this newsletter are links to articles I’ve written about students in my Indigenous news beat, as well last year’s column about volunteering at the Green Bay East student newspaper.

If you like this newsletter, please invite a friend to subscribe to it. As an incentive for readers to turn to our publications for coverage on Indigenous Wisconsin, I’d like to point out a subscription sale — $1 buys a six-month digital subscription. Many of the stories published this week can only be read with a subscription.

And if you have tips or suggestions for this newsletter, please email me at fvaisvilas@gannett.com.

About me

I'm Frank Vaisvilas, a Report For America corps member based at the Green Bay Press-Gazette covering Native American issues in Wisconsin. You can reach me at 920-228-0437 or fvaisvilas@gannett.com, or on Twitter at @vaisvilas_frank. Please consider supporting journalism that informs our democracy with a tax-deductible gift to this reporting effort at GreenBayPressGazette.com/RFA.