Dani Crossen remembers right where she was when she first fell in love with journalism—it was writing her first feature story in a booth in the teen area of Kitsap Regional Library’s Silverdale branch.
“All of a sudden, everything just started to click,” Dani says. She wrote that story quickly, “and from that point on, my passion for journalism has only grown.” Now she’s written more than 40 stories, and she just won the Washington Journalism Education Association’s (WJEA) “Journalist of the Year” award, the most prestigious student journalism award in the state.
“It was really exciting when we heard that she had won that award,” says Silverdale branch manager Ana Cuprill Comas. “And actually, we heard because she came to tell us.” Ana says Dani can sometimes be quiet and isn’t one to brag. “But she knew that we would be proud of her and excited for her.”
A Support Team
Dani recently graduated from Central Kitsap High School, where, as a senior, she served as Editor-in-Chief of the Cougar Chronicle, the school's student news site. She says she started coming into the Silverdale branch, which is connected to CKHS, during her freshman year.
She would work on school assignments in the Silverdale teen area pretty regularly. “I went to talk to her about what she was writing,” Ana says. Over time, the Silverdale staff got to know her well.
Dani began bringing papers and articles she had written to show to Ana, sometimes dropping them off and asking for edits and feedback. “I was really proud of those at the time,” she says. “I wanted to show someone, and I thought, ‘I know who will appreciate this.’"
“We became a support team for Dani,” says Ana. “She really engaged with us and started checking in and asking, ‘What’s going on at the Library?’”
One Library event she pointed out to Dani was the recurring Read to a Dog program—where local volunteers bring in therapy dogs so children can practice reading in a safe, supportive environment. Intrigued, Dani started to report.
Even considering all of the other stories she’s written since, Dani feels especially proud of this one. Normally, it takes her days to figure out how she’s going to write a piece in a fun and concise way. But for this one, “As soon as I started interviewing people, in my head, I knew exactly how I wanted this story to look.”
During her junior year, Dani took on the role of website editor for the Cougar Chronicle. Her goal was to support the Chronicle in earning recognition as a “SNO Distinguished Site.” School Newspapers Online, or SNO, is the de facto organizer of student newspapers across the country. Each year, high school news sites can attempt to earn six badges that showcase excellence in coverage, storytelling, and design. If all six are earned in a year—not an easy feat when all the news site’s “staff” are also full-time high school students—the school’s news site is awarded “Distinguished Site” recognition.
So, it was a big deal when Dani got the news, “I was on my way to work,” she says, when her phone buzzed: “Oh my God, Dani! You’ve won Best of SNO!”
"No Need to Whisper When Reading to Whisper the Dog," her piece on the Library's Read to a Dog event, won Best of SNO's Story Writing Award, officially earning the Cougar the most difficult badge of the six they were chasing.
Gaining Momentum
Dani says the award is one benchmark of how much the news site and her cohort have improved the school's news coverage in recent years. The Cougar used to earn one or two Best of SNO awards each year, but this past year? They won six.
“Even though we’re a very small group, the people who are in the group are very determined and passionate and are putting in 100% effort and getting all of these great outcomes, so we’re able to achieve these great things,” says Dani.
The Silverdale branch staff also continued to support the site. “We made sure that the Cougar was here. I don’t think we’d had it before, and it hadn’t really been printed,” says Ana. “We put it in the teen area, sometimes I would put it over by the magazines to make sure people could see it.”
And after years of hard work and gaining momentum, Dani won Washington’s biggest student reporter award.
A Lifelong Passion
To apply for the WJEA Journalist of the Year Award, applicants must submit a portfolio of work encompassing all forms of media publications and professional development. Dani spent the better part of a year working constantly, including pulling one notable all-nighter on New Year's Eve, to build her portfolio. "It really encompasses my entire journalism career in high school," she says.
The award ceremony, which rotates between locations across the state, was actually held at CKHS this spring. But Dani didn't know she'd won until the announcement came up on the big screen—and everyone started screaming.
The award comes with a $2,000 scholarship, which Dani will put toward her journalism studies at Western Washington University in Bellingham, where she's moving this summer. Although the university’s digital news site, The Front, doesn’t usually employ first-year students, she plans to bombard them with news pitches as a guest writer.
“I can’t imagine not writing stories all the time,” she says.
Back at the Silverdale branch, Ana says that everyone is excited for Dani. After years of reading her work and getting to know her, the staff is really proud of her. This is the type of supportive work that they love doing, Ana says.
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