By: Logan Becker
If you’ve read our other articles, you can probably guess where we got this story idea from. Of the first three slips of paper placed in our beloved “Idea Box,” one was just a student’s name: Ethan Papke. After being given a very open-ended prompt such as this, I decided to find the man himself as any good reporter would do.
But before I did, I needed more than a name to go off, so I asked around and found out that he was a player on the football team who had blond hair and hung out in Ms. O’s room a lot during lunch. I decided to investigate and asked around for more information. Fortunately, I found some friends of his who took me to meet him during lunch. After a tedious walk through the back hallways of the school, we located him in the automotive room working diligently on an assignment. His friends called him over and introduced him to me after getting the teacher’s permission, and so I began my interview.
Since I didn’t have that much time with him, I asked him to tell me a bit about himself after explaining I was a writer for the school newspaper. He chuckled awkwardly and asked me to elaborate. I was getting a little nervous myself, so I asked him if he had any hobbies or what he was into.
He responded with a myriad of different pastimes, such as hunting, football, and showing cows. Due to lack of time, the interview had to be cut short and I wasn’t able to get a photo with him in our first meeting. Fortunately, student Jacob Schuenke was happy to provide me with a picture to go along with my article.
After further research, I found out that Mr. Papke is a stellar defensive and offensive lineman for our football team and is only a sophomore. His friends seemed to think very highly of him when I interviewed them and now so do I after not knowing who this person was until recently. I believe my search for Ethan Papke was very successful, and I’m glad I found his name inside the Idea Box for a story idea, and hopefully, he does too.
thecometeer