Senior and former editor of The Roar Olivia Austin is notorious for constantly being on the sidelines of football and basketball games with a camera in hand. Austin always has a question to ask and therefore a story to tell.
Throughout her experience on The Roar, Austin discovered a passion for getting to know people and, later on, a love for video making and social media.
However, Austin hadn’t always been in love with reporting. In fact, she wasn’t even registered to take Journalism her freshman year; fellow peer and later co-editor Victoria Scovel convinced her to join after Austin had talked to her about hating the elective she was enrolled in at the time.
“I was in [Journalism] the third day of school,” Austin said. “I immediately fell in love with it. It was kind of that thing where I wasn’t really good at it at first, but I had the heart for it, and the skill came along with it.”
The skill came fast. At the end of her freshman year, Austin was selected to be an editor of The Roar.
“I was surprised, because when you’re that young and inexperienced, [it’s] kind of odd [to be chosen as an editor],” Austin said. “I was in a training position my sophomore year, so I did all of our marketing [and] our advertising while training to be the editor-in-chief.”
However, for the adviser at the time, Betsy Verwys, selecting Austin was an easy decision, despite her young age. In fact, Verwys intended on bringing on younger editors in a learning environment in order to “be able to pass the baton from one leadership class to the next.”
“First and foremost, Olivia [Austin] is a good thinker and a good writer,” Verwys said. “If you’re not a good journalist, you can’t possibly be a good editor. [She] is a hard worker and is often harder on herself than anyone else needs to be. So, by the time I saw her articles, she already ran them through two or three cycles of editing, and she’s not afraid of criticism or of going back to the drawing board.”
At the end of Austin’s first year as editor, the unexpected happened: the Covid-19 pandemic.
When the pandemic struck, the school went virtual, including Journalism, where student-journalists worked tirelessly to cover what, exactly, was happening. Austin “stepped up” from her prior learning position and took on her own team of staff members as the senior editors left and new ones (Austin, Scovel and Doretta Schat-Beimers) were selected.
Soon after, the even more unexpected occurred: Verwys said goodbye to the high school two weeks before the end of the year.
“[Verwys leaving] was really hard for us, and we didn’t know what we were going to do,” Austin said. “We didn’t really know what was happening, because we didn’t have any information. We were sad and upset.”
In August, only weeks before the start of the 2020-21 school year, teacher and current adviser Matt Howe was chosen to fill Verwys’ position.
Leading The Roar was nevertheless a struggle. The pandemic was still in full swing, and the three, nearly brand new editors had mere weeks to teach Howe how the newspaper ran.
“I feel like it was difficult that we didn’t have the time to fix things that needed to be fixed,” Austin said.
Howe definitely credits Austin with keeping him afloat during that strange, first year as adviser.
“Olivia ‘Blue Ribbon’ Austin is perhaps the sole reason ‘Mr. Howe’ survived his first year as a Journalism teacher,” Howe said. “Her attention to detail [during] her first two years on staff allowed her to coach me regarding all things Roar, especially the behind the scenes things.”
However, things started looking up the following school year. Austin was in her third year as editor, and living under the pandemic was becoming a distant memory.
The Roar had Howe as adviser, and Austin, Scovel and Calvin Hyde as the trio of editors.
With their newfound freedom of time and an expansive budget via fundraising, Austin and Hyde in particular decided to initiate the multimedia aspect of the publication. The duo conducted copious amounts of research on the best camera to make videos with and applied for a grant; they secured it after a persuading presentation to the Northview Education Foundation.
While Hyde focused on human interest podcasts and videos, Austin decided to begin to make fun films centered around the high school’s varsity sports, starting with her very first video, Captains vs. Captains- Football edition.
“[Filming the video] was fun and different from what we normally do,” Austin said. “It wasn’t like ‘Oh, I have to sit here and interview this person and pay attention.’ I got to hang out with them.”
Additionally, her audience reciprocates her joy.
“Everybody is super willing [to participate], everybody enjoys it, everybody has fun,” Austin said.
Throughout her time as editor, Austin has been set on engaging her peers with The Roar, whether that be through social media or the actual newsletter.
“A lot of people who I’ve done stories on or interviewed or something, they became close friends of mine,” Austin said. “I’ve made some of my greatest friends on staff. I grew The Roar’s [social media] following. I made people more excited to want to get involved and to look out for our posts and want to be a part of it.”
Austin truly became passionate about learning more about the people around her.
“My favorite quote is the one that goes ‘There are seven billion people in this world, and everybody lives every day differently,’” Austin said. “Nobody has the same day. If you get to learn about a fraction of those people, it’s so worth it.”
Austin decided in the winter of this year to showcase just how much of her heart and soul she had poured into The Roar. Previously, throughout her entire time on staff, Austin had won many Michigan Interscholastic Press Association awards for her individual articles. However, this winter, she had made a personal portfolio and submitted herself for the state-wide, student journalist award, particularly the digital media category.
She won.
“It’s not that I didn’t think I could get it, but it was like, the hard work I put into the portfolio paid off,” Austin said. “I felt like it wasn’t to waste. I didn’t put all that work in for nothing.”
Still, Austin gained more than just awards from her time leading the newspaper. She discovered a love that would guide her career and college decision.
Initially, Austin wanted to go into journalism professionally. However, things started to change this year, and she began to have doubts.
“I would still tell people that’s what I was going into, because it was better to have an answer than not have one. I was lost on what I wanted to do,” Austin said. “And then, when I started taking over the social media, I thought it was fun, and I enjoyed it.”
During Thanksgiving break, Austin began to play around in Adobe Lightroom and Photoshop. She started to make game day posts for the varsity basketball team and fell in love. She started to make other promotional pieces for the team, including a post for Kyler Vanderjagt’s 1000 point game.
“[I] thought it was something I could make a career out of,” Austin said.
Austin decided to apply to both Calvin College and Michigan State University as a marketing major, then last moment switched to a communications major and was accepted into both colleges. Austin was torn between the two schools, so she decided to start reaching out to staff and alumni.
This is when she met Renae Weaver, the media director for Michigan State athletics.
“[Weaver] basically said that they take in student interns every year and would really love for me to come work with them, that she was really excited to work with me if I decided to go there,” Austin said. “Instantly, that was when I made the decision. I was like, this is an opportunity nobody should ever pass up.”
Austin will be attending MSU in the fall, majoring in communications and working with the athletic department to hone her skill set.
Verwys knows that Austin has what it takes to make it big in her respective field.
“She was always hungry to tell a story,” Verwys said. “That natural sense of curiosity will be the thing that carries her.”
