Reflecting on 10 Years of The Gazette
Photo by Alejandro Izurieta, The Gazette photographer
The Grace Gazette has become an important part of the Grace Community, covering a wide range of topics and informing the student body. From as big a scale as world politics to as niche a subject as Grace’s current trends, The Gazette has always given students something to read about.
The Grace Gazette was introduced to the school in 2013 and began publishing in the spring of 2014. Many students have come and gone – as editors, writers, and other contributors – making The Gazette the multi-faceted organization that it is.
Since the start of this publication, The Gazette has created GraceCast podcast, the video series Good Morning Grace, the livestreaming Grace Broadcasting Network, and a flourishing social media presence. Over the past 10 years, The Gazette has published 579 articles and that number is only growing.
The Gazette was started as a club by five students with the help of Topher Nichols, Grace’s outgoing head of special projects & organizational initiatives. Even within the first year of The Gazette, there were a lot of changes and improvements being made. There were only five articles published in the first year.
“It was kind of like running a startup, not a lot of resources, not a lot of people, and there wasn’t a lot to cover,” Mr. Nichols recalled. “As the school has grown and expanded, The Gazette has grown and expanded.”
Mr. Nichols remained the Journalism teacher and faculty advisor to The Gazette for five years. After only a year of being a club, The Gazette grew into an elective under Mr. Mahabir, the former head of the high school.
Katie H. ‘17 was the original Editor-in-Chief of The Gazette for two years. She worked alongside five students, which quickly grew into a larger class of 12 students. This group of 12 students designed and produced the current Grace Gazette website with the help of Ravi Persaud, the school’s academic systems manager.
Katie H. shared over an email that The Gazette’s biggest struggle was readership. As Katie worked on the logistics for the Grace Gazette, she needed to find ways to build a reputation among the Grace community.
“We would put out great stories,” Katie shared, “but got very little traction with views. We would put up posters and refer friends, but nothing really worked.”
This led her to think of more creative ways to reach the Grace community in order to create the reputation that it has today. She came up with the idea to send an email to the entire school titled, “READ THIS EMAIL FOR A FREE COOKIE!!!” This resulted in a 700% increase in readership, as well as an influence that is still present today.
The slow start of The Gazette was also due to the high school being so youthful. As the sports and traditions of the high school grew, The Gazette had more to cover. The longer The Gazette has been running, the more established it has become, and this trend will certainly continue in years to come.
The Gazette has also supported many students interested in the field of journalism. Sam M. ‘18 was the Managing Editor his senior year. He went on to study sports journalism, traveling to Madrid to photograph sports games for Marist College.
Ava A. ‘22, the former Editor-in-Chief of The Gazette, pursued a passion for journalism that she discovered during her years at The Gazette – she plans on majoring in Journalism at UC Berkeley.
Ava wanted to create a new outlet for media and news under the Grace Gazette.
“I wanted to start GraceCast because I felt like we should expand our platforms,” she said in an interview.
Ava felt that a lot of students were listening to podcasts and creating GraceCast was a way to connect with the community.
Katie, Ava, Sam, and so many other Grace students have explored passions for journalism, thanks to the Grace Gazette. The forthcoming print edition will celebrate the former members as well as the current contributors of the Grace Gazette.
Ana Vorderwuelbecke ‘25, the author, is current staff writer for The Gazette.