In preparation for the 2024-2025 school year, the Talisman has selected a new editorial board that will oversee all aspects of our organization. Applicants were current members of the Talisman staff, and were selected based on their technical knowledge, leadership skills and vision for the Talisman’s future. These new leaders are Dre Nelson (Director of Multimedia), Natalie Heckert (Managing Editor), Izzy Kelly (Director of Visuals), Abby Stahl (Online Content Manager) and Ava Vogel (Editor-in-Chief).
Dre Nelson – Director of Multimedia
Why did you want to take on this position?
“I felt if I had more of a leadership role then it would allow me to take responsibility and do what I want to do [with the program] rather than being off to the side … Also, I felt like I had enough experience to go into it; I had Collin teach me and he’s a very nice teacher.”
What are your priorities for your branch next year?
“I would probably say teamwork because there are a lot of new people coming on to staff. And I’m pretty sure most of them know each other, but they’ve never done a project or anything with each other. So honestly, just interacting with each other, and making sure they build that chemistry so that later on in the year it’s not a stranger environment and it’s more like: ‘You need help, I need help, let’s help each other.’”
What are some policies or changes that you’ll be enacting?
“It’s nice to hang out and do things with each other. It’s supposed to be a fun period and [Talisman] is probably the highlight of my day every day; I love that period. But at some point, I have to draw a line between work time and hangout time, because most people use that period as a hangout time when you’re supposed to be able to get work done in a period. So I’ll make sure that next year I set a boundary to where it’s like, ‘alright, we need to get work done. Alright, now we can hang out.’”
What leadership positions or other roles have you held in the past? How have they helped prepare you for this position?
“The only leadership role I can say I’ve had is that I was captain of my soccer team in seventh grade. Even though it was seventh grade, I tried my best to bring everyone on my team together and made sure there weren’t any arguments because we’re a team. Every day when we walk into [Talisman] second period, I want us to be friends.”
What are your priorities for the whole of Talisman next year?
“All of the broadcast people from the beginning, we all saw the couch in the back room and we were like, ‘oh, we’re gonna camp out back here.’ We just never came back out. But if I’m gonna be better next year, I want to be able to have a relationship with everyone and not just broadcast because even though I’m the Director of Multimedia, I don’t want to just be the Director of Multimedia. I want to be able to help you.”
Is there anything else you’d like to share?
“This year was a nice year and I really hope we can repeat what we had this year. [Multimedia has] come a long way from what it was, and I’m glad that everyone on broadcast could make that happen. There was always this team effort and I’m glad that everyone was a part of it.”
Natalie Heckert – Managing Editor
Why did you want to take on this position?
“I love the people on the team and I just wanted to be able to help and be a leader that creates a good environment for next year’s staff.”
What are some policies or changes that you’ll be enacting?
“I feel like it’d be nice to make a new deadline policy of some sort. Instead of just doing late work or being fine with accepting late work, maybe something happens to your grade if your work is always late or if a story doesn’t run or something of that sort.”
What lessons have you learned as a staff writer that you’ll consider as you enter leadership?
“It’s always okay to ask questions. If you ever have a question, just ask it. I mean, I’m sure I’ll have plenty of questions next year, so, for any upcoming staff writers, ask questions. We’re all here for you.”
What leadership positions or other roles have you held in the past? How have they helped prepare you for this position?
“I’ve learned a lot from being an older member of my dance team and leading the team, along with work and teaching new people.”
What are your priorities for the whole of Talisman next year?
“One of my priorities, other than deadlines, is also definitely going to be making sure that we’re hanging out outside of school. Especially with the separation of broadcast, I want to make sure that we’re still all one program. We’re all just the Talisman. So I definitely want to focus on bringing everybody together every once in a while.”
Izzy Kelly – Director of Visuals
Why did you want to take on this position?
“I want to make next year for photographers a better year than it was for me; just having more leadership and helping people out more and making sure people know what they’re supposed to be doing. I just wanted to do something more for the Talisman because I really liked doing it this year.”
What are your priorities for your branch next year?
“People need to have all their photography assignments [on time] every rotation because I know that was not very good this year, but next year, it’ll be good.”
What are some policies or changes that you’ll be enacting?
“Maybe [with] deleting assignments. Now, if someone just were like, ‘Oh, I don’t feel like going,’ they’ll just delete the assignment. But then we all scramble because now we don’t have anything … I realize that sounds a little harsh, but I mean, just text me and say why you’re deleting assignments so I know.”
What lessons have you learned as a photographer that you’ll consider as you enter leadership?
“I want us to all be close and be friends and be able to talk to each other about things.”
What leadership positions or other roles have you held in the past? How have they helped prepare you for this position?
“Well, I work at Bob Evans. It’s very tough, especially Sundays after church. I’m a hostess so I’m kind of running [around].”
What are your priorities for the whole of Talisman next year?
“Covering more controversial stories. I know a lot of people we interviewed [for staff] are definitely wanting to do that next year. We need to have a few [photographers] go out there and cover more things other than sports.”
Abby Stahl – Online Content Manager
Why did you want to take on this position?
“I would truly enjoy running social media accounts and that’s something that I want to do; I want to go into advertising in college especially for sports.”
What are your priorities for your branch next year?
“Just to make sure that everything’s consistent. The goal is to have something to post every day. That’s been the goal this year. Some days were better than most, but we just need to be consistent and keep the Instagram page active to keep the followers active.”
What are some policies or changes that you’ll be enacting?
“Just to go to other sports events because, usually during football season, it’s a lot of live posting of the football games and stuff. And I personally wanted to get out to other things such as the volleyball games and girls’ tennis matches. That’s something that we always forget about.”
What lessons have you learned as a social media manager that you’ll consider as you enter leadership?
“I guess communicating with everyone. Because of the way our website works to post everything, sometimes we don’t always have everything there [for a story].”
What leadership positions or other roles have you held in the past? How have they helped prepare you for this position?
“Softball has played a big role because, in softball, you always want someone to step up the ladder, and that has taught me leadership in a way.”
What are your priorities for the whole of Talisman next year?
“I think it’s just really important to always have something new going up and being consistent with everything.”
Ava Vogel – Editor-in-Chief
Why did you want to take on this position?
“Well, I think it’s because I saw how good of a job Grace did. She’s doing a really good job and I thought that I could try my best to make [Talisman] as good as it was, if not better for next year.”
What are your priorities for your branch next year?
“Making sure that things don’t get stuck halfway through the process of editing. And also, just to bring everybody together because I know we’re one big group that has all these different little departments to it, but just making sure that everybody stays one giant team.”
What are some policies or changes that you’ll be enacting?
“I definitely want to do more team bonding sort of things outside of school. Maybe have break days at the end of the rotation to be like, ‘Good job, you guys did it’ if everybody got everything done on time. As far as policies or anything, I think being a little bit more strict with deadlines, just to make sure that every story counts and gets out in a timely manner.”
What lessons have you learned as a staff writer that you’ll consider as you enter leadership?
“I definitely think that the promptness that some of the stories need to get published kind of puts a little bit of stress on the writers. So being mindful of that and thinking of ways that alleviate that stress from them and make it a smoother, more enjoyable time for those stressful stories. People have things that they have to do outside of school, and some people have a lot going on. Just to be mindful of everyone’s personalities and how some personalities might not click together to try and find the best way to help that situation.”
What leadership positions or other roles have you held in the past? How have they helped prepare you for this position?
“I’ve been a tennis captain a few times now; in middle school I was a tennis captain, last year I was also a tennis captain for our team. I also was vice president for chorale last year, and seeing other people take on leadership positions showed me what I want to do when it comes to holding a leadership position. Having those leadership positions has really made it so that I prioritize making sure that everybody has a fun and safe time with the sport or team or group that they’re a part of. Just to make sure that everybody feels involved and not left out.”
What are your priorities for the whole of Talisman next year?
“I think [a priority], especially if they are going to choose to do the period break between broadcast and [everyone else], is to make sure that we still have that connection between the two branches. I know this year we’ve had a few outside of school things that we did, but making sure that we’re still one big group and reminding people that we’re in this together and we can make this the best or the worst publication. If we can put in the effort then we can get things done.”
Anything else you’d like to share?
“I think next year will be really fun and I’m excited to see how the two periods work out. Hopefully we have a more diverse coverage of different things. I know this year we at least tried to highlight some of the performing arts stuff a little bit more than past years, but just having a more diverse team and also just having a good, wide spread of ideas from everybody will be great.”
