Kelsey Long, Website Specialist
Kelsey Long joined Newspaper during her freshman year and has loved t ever since. She joined out of a passion for writing and the First Amendment. Kelsey has written a lot of stories, both for Newspaper and fun. She is a published poet and has four published poems, is writing a fictional story on World War Three, multiple Creative Writing essays, and numerous articles for NEXT and SmokyNow. She also enjoys other hobbies such as gaming, photography, and researching different military topics.
Kelsey enjoys playing video games during the weekend. Her favorite games include The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim, Call of Duty: Modern Warfare Two, Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare, The Walking Dead: Seasons One and Two, and Medal of Honor: Warfighter. As a result of her love of gaming, she writes fan-fictions about these games on the side for fun. Newspaper gives her the opportunity to do reviews on these games and understand references made by the readers.
Newspaper allows Kelsey to really explore her love of photography by requiring her to take photos for both the feature magazine and the website. She particularly enjoys pictures of people because it isn’t “dead-art” and these photos are more relatable. Kelsey’s favorite picture was featured in the very first feature magazine. The picture was of senior Ismaat Kalibou with duct tape across her mouth, peace written on it, holding up a peace sign.
Kelsey is enlisting in the United States Army in March as a part of the delayed-entry program, also known as DEPs. She will be a military working dog handler or a combat engineer, but she plans on freelance journalism while in the Army. She is a military brat and loves when she gets the option to write a military related article for Newspaper. However, due to conflict of interest, she mostly serves the Newspaper by acting as an “expert” when anyone has questions about the military for an article.
Newspaper has helped her improve a lot with her writing and meeting deadlines. As the Website Specialist, she has grown in her understanding of technology and as an editor, her idea of responsibility has grown. Kelsey is sad to see her time in Newspaper come to an end in December but is excited to use the skills she has learned in the real world.