Student Spotlight: Hayley Schneider

In the weeks ahead, Ledyard High School will receive the first issue of its student newspaper, The Colonel, this fall. The new publications should reach the students around Oct. 7. In the meantime, student reporters and editors are busily working to get it ready for the printer.

This year, Hayley Schneider, a 17-year-old senior, directs their efforts as The Colonel’s editor-in-chief.  

The Colonel's staff includes nine editors, mostly juniors and seniors, and six students taking a Journalism class. This team is responsible for creating both The Colonel and the school’s yearbook.

Under the guidance of teacher William Friskey, these students do most of the work themselves. They brainstorm ideas for stories and then assign them. They conduct interviews and write articles. They create layouts, then send their work out to a copy editor and a printer. When the finished product arrives, they sort and distribute the papers. They raise money by selling advertisements to businesses.

Schneider’s task is to oversee all this work. “I’m definitely in a leadership role,” she said, and the role is a demanding one.

“It’s a lot of hard work. Every single day I have two agendas: one for my school work and one for journalism. Mr. Friskey and I email each other all the time because something comes up every day,” she said.

She devotes extra time to the newspaper before and after school and during lunch. “It’s a lot of pressure, because everyone in the school and the town is going to be reading it.”

Even so, Schneider enjoys the work. “I really do love to write,” she said. “I’m really into this artistic design stuff, and I get to put the two together, and I get to do it for a class at school.”

She also hopes her experiences with The Colonel will help her decide on a future career.

“What I want to learn from working on The Colonel is what it’s like to work for a newspaper,” she said. “I want to feel what it’s like to work on something and know that people are going to look at it… Instead of learning for the test, I want to learn for the real world.”

In addition to working with the newspaper, Schneider challenges herself by taking the hardest classes offered in her favorite subjects. She is currently in Advanced Placement Spanish, and plans to take AP English in the spring. She has already taken AP History.

Outside of school, she enjoys reading and traveling. “Dance is another one of my passions,” she said. She performs in Mystic Ballet’s junior company. “We do so many shows, I don’t know how many we do in a year,” she said.

The editor also volunteers for the Big Brothers/Big Sisters program and belongs to the National Honor Society.

All these activities leave Schneider with little time left over. “That takes up all my time,” she said, “But I like to stay busy.”