Meet the camper: Lauren Grace

By Caroline Engle/Advanced Writing

“Journalism is the rough draft of history.”

This Phillip Graham quote is the favorite of Oak Park senior Lauren Grace.

Grace, The Northmen’s Log editor-in-chief, is one of two Oak Park students attending Flint Hills Publication Workshop this year. In order to prepare for her new position in the paper, she signed up for the Editorial Leadership track.

“I like it,” Grace said. “I was hesitant, but [my love of the class] shows you can trust him [instructor Travis Feil]. He made the class engaging.”

Grace has been interested in journalism since middle school. Aside from a fondness for writing, she enjoys watching broadcast journalists.

“I love Christianne Amanpour,” Grace said. “She’s a broadcast journalist for CNN. It might be cliche for me to like her, but she has a great style -- how she works with people and gives you information. She comes off powerful.”

Learning how to handle her power as editor of her newspaper is one of Grace’s goals during camp. She hopes to use her experience from FHPW to do this as well as previous experiences.

“I interned last summer at the Daily Star Journal,” Grace said. “You’d have to write stuff within an hour. I did feature and news [pieces].”

Grace’s other interests include running cross country and traveling, especially to Turkey.

“I like the culture in Turkey,” Grace said. “They’re so lovely and kind of carefree. It has beautiful landscapes. It’s kind of like Utah -- the rocks are weirdly shaped.”

Although she loves international travel, Grace plans to stay in the United States for college. Some of the schools she will consider are Lafayette College, Wheaton College, Ohio State University and University of Missouri. She hopes to integrate journalism into her major but plans to study something aside from writing as well.

“My passion so far has been psychology,” Grace said. “I would really like to incorporate that [with journalism].”