My story.

The kindling

My grandfather died of brain cancer in May of 2021. It was strange, watching the man I called Pops, a man who never stopped moving, suddenly sentenced to walkers and hospital gurneys. Towards the end of his life, his skin, once like tanned leather from his days in the Arkansas sun, now draped his bones and sinew loosely in a pallid curtain. His face stayed swollen from the seemingly endless rounds of chemo and radiation. I found myself struggling to recall what he used to look like. Trying to remember all of his stories and sayings felt like trying to recreate the Library of Alexandria from memory.

During one of my last visits with him, I found his old high school yearbook from 1966. He was asleep in his recliner as I slid the title out from underneath several magazines and photo albums on the coffee table. The Crossett Termite, 1966 in serif letters were embossed across the maroon front cover. I turned to the index section, scanning the sparsely populated “W” section for “Wise, Darrell”. I flipped to the first page under his name, the track and field page.

All of the photos were black and white, but that didn’t prevent me from instantly recognizing his face, even though I hadn’t seen it so young in my lifetime. There he was, permanently suspended in mid-air as he competed in broad jump. A small smile crossed my lips, knowing he is where I got the track-and-field genes from. On another page, all of his limbs were strained and stretched as he crossed the finish line.

Between pages, I would glance up at Pops, who was sleeping in his recliner, then look back at the photographs lying on my lap. He had lived so many stories even before he had been in mine. Being able to read his name in print and see his face and body restored to youthful vigor, even in two-dimensional ink, was the catalyst to a profound realization: I could be responsible for telling those stories.

He died two days after I turned sixteen. Three months later, I signed up for Yearbook Production I.

Journalism, at its core, is storytelling. In The Elements of Journalism by Bill Kovach and Tom Rosenstiel, journalism is defined as “storytelling with a purpose”. A journalist is simply a storyteller. From a hard news specialist to a yearbook adviser, any professional in this field has a duty not to only cover a story, but to cover it right.

I want the next generation of granddaughters and grandsons to be able to pull out their grandpa’s old yearbook or a local news clipping of grandma or see their parent’s small business make it onto the five o’clock news.

At the end of the day, memories fade. I am a journalist because I want to touch the lives of readers I will most likely never meet. I owe it to the people who put together that 1966 edition of the Crossett Termite.

Reagan Netherland with her paternal grandfather, Darrell "Pops" Wise.

The spark

Looking around my school, I realized just how many of our stories went untold in day-to-day campus life. No one knew about the water polo team going to playoffs for the first time in school history, or about the student that worked late nights cleaning the school, or the JROTC minting their own challenge coin. I leaned into my background as an editor-in-chief of the newspaper and made it my mission to expand Braswell’s journalism department.

I became editor-in-chief of the yearbook as the one of only two returning members of the 2021-2022 The Ambush Yearbook staff, including our adviser. With my new adviser, Mr. Carr, I recruited a diverse group of underclassmen to fill a once-empty roster. Though many established programs in our area had plenty of students with two or three years in high school yearbook production to fill their ranks, the 2022-2023 The Ambush staff had only two seniors in leadership roles. The rest were freshmen.

The youth of our team brought unique obstacles, namely inexperience, but it also gave the program a renewed energy and enthusiasm that had yet to be seen in years prior. After establishing a foundation of journalistic skills (writing in AP style and design principles), we were better prepared to tackle the program’s other obstacles, such as prior review and censorship from administration.

From there I continued my plan to revitalize the yearbook program. Partnering with another student, Brookelynn Burchfield, I revived the broadcast program after it faced a lack of funding, equipment, and staff. I had no experience in front of the camera, much less filming or editing video and audio.

It was rough, as expected. Starting from scratch, with only a DSLR camera and two $10 Amazon lapel microphones at our disposal, my adviser, Brookelynn, and I learned how to do all of these things together. We developed our own process in which we could produce a fully-staffed, fully-funded, and fully-established broadcast program in just one day.Refusing to be limited by our Our dedication paid off, and we eventually started getting picked up by the official school Facebook and Twitter pages.

Looking back on our work, I can now see all of the little mistakes we made, but putting these videos in context and the challenges we had to work around gives me a sense of satisfaction: BHS NOW did not die. In addition to leading these two programs, I networked with every organization in the school in order to ensure their representation within all of our school’s publications. I woke up early and stayed out late, determined to capture the story through photography, film, or copy.

All because everyone’s story, from the athletes to the artists to the kid that works well into the night supporting their family to everyone in between, deserves to be told.

Reagan Netherland scans the sidelines for open spaces for her and other Braswell Media photographers. Photo courtesy of Lastovica Photography.

Reagan Netherland conducts an interview with Cody Moore, Braswell Bengals head coach.

The flame

In my three years at Braswell Media, I’ve collected a couple nicknames: “the yearbook girl” and “the Braswell Media girl”. Most people, from students, to faculty, to the SROs, have seen my face, heard my voice, or read my writing at least once.

This is far from my peak.

I plan to follow the same path during my time at the University of Arkansas. With the reach of the School of Journalism and Strategic Media, I’ll have an opportunity to amplify such stories as part of an even larger community.

I’m no stranger to hard work. I am juicing every last ounce of my passion for storytelling to fuel my ambition. I will be a household name, writing about people and places that are crying out to be immortalized in print. I even have plans to start-up my own publication.

Until then, it’s go-time. I have work to do.

Reagan Netherland will be attending the University of Arkansas in the fall of 2023.