Ella Peirce and Will Banfield

A photo of the people who run the two school podcasts: FHC Sports Report and The Central Scoop

People will often hear the saying, “It’s the little things that count,” and for senior Addy Cousins, this is a saying she knows to hold true; when she helped run one of FHC’s podcasts, it was those little moments she’d celebrated that meant the most to her.

“One of my favorite memories from podcasts last year would be every little celebration [former graduate] Lauren [Brace] and I would do, like if we hit a milestone on getting an episode, like our first episode or any episode, out,” Addy said. “We’d always hug and celebrate it in little ways that made it even more fun and made you want to continue doing the podcast.”

Creative outlets have always played a key role in Addy’s life—they have most recently taken the form of journalism. Writing has long since been one of those creative outlets which Addy has expressed herself through; however, one of her more recent avant-garde projects was a school podcast: The Central Scoop.

The idea spurred into creation after her long summer drives up to her cottage where she listened to other podcasts to pass the time. She took her listening and decided to turn it into something of her own.

“I thought it was an interesting form of journalism,” Addy said. “My mom was listening to podcasts a lot over the summer. We’d take a lot of long drives to our cottage and up to my grandparents, and we’d listen to podcasts the entire way up there. It was very interesting, and I thought it would be interesting to use the podcast that we have at school to share my opinion on different topics because I love writing.”

While The Central Scoop is a hotspot for the students of FHC to hear their fellow peers discuss all the pop-culture and seasonal events occurring, FHC Sports Report provides an outlet for all the sports fanatics of FHC to tune into.

Every Tuesday and Thursday, FHC Sports Report gives their predictions as to how the National Football League (NFL) games will play out, and then in the following podcast they discuss how the game actually did play out: faults in plays, right predictions, and intense matchups.

For senior Will Banfield, junior Eli Lipke, and junior Jackson Traughber—the students who run the FHC Sports Report podcast—it has formed into something that they are truly passionate about maintaining.

“We love doing it so much, it’s a passion project,” Will said. “It really is, and it’s fun to do; I don’t do it for the points if I’m being honest,” Eli continued. “And sometimes we have guests,” Will said. “Like [sophomore] Colton Comiskey,” Jackson added. “But we love it all so much,” Will said.

Although the podcast may be something that Will, Eli, and Jackson all enjoy doing together, that doesn’t mean it doesn’t go without disagreements. With such diverse teams and opinions, disputes are bound to happen when discussing predictions and plays.

However, at the end of the day, even with all their differences, the three of them have never been closer together.

“We have our moments where we absolutely hate each other and want to punch each other because we disagree,” Will said. “[But] that’s the sports world—obviously different opinions,” Eli added. “But right now we’re geared towards a more one-take approach. In the beginning, we were kind of just fighting and [would have to] take 10 takes but now we’re closer together. We’re better friends than ever, and we just love each other.” Will said.

It remains true for both podcasts that those producing them leave better friends than they had entered. However, in the case of The Central Scoop, Addy’s partner in leading the podcast has since graduated, leaving her to pass the podcast on to sophomores Addie Woltil, Ella Peirce, and Evvy Alt.

Since taking over, one of the main aspects that has stood out to Ella and Addie was their audience—how in this informal context, in comparison to the articles they publish, they can relate to their audience more.

“My mom listens to the podcast, and she keeps telling me that she thinks she’s best friends with all of us now because she hears our conversations. She sees it as if she’s part of it. I think we’re definitely more relatable in our podcast than we are with writing because there are more slip-ups; naturally, the way we talk isn’t exactly like the way we write—like making sure there are no errors,” Addie said. “I think that we talk about things that other people can relate to because it’s all really basic stuff. We’re all just basic sophomore girls and that’s just what we talk about,” Ella added.

Although the podcast has become a time for Addie, Ella, and Evvy to come together, hang out, and discuss the events happening in our world and community, it has also come to teach them a lot about the world of journalism.

They acknowledge that there is more to journalism than simply writing and publishing articles in a newspaper; there is an entire world out there full of different kinds of journalism—including podcasts.

“I would say [being in a podcast] definitely has [opened up the world of journalism for me], especially when we went to the [Michigan Interscholastic Press Association (MIPA)] conference. That really made us think like, ‘Oh, this is a way of journalism,’ and made us think about how there were several ways to do it.” Ella said. “I think it’s opened us up in a lot of ways with the different methods and forms of journalism. I didn’t really think of podcasts exactly as [a form of journalism] before; I thought of it as just entertainment, but in a lot of ways, it is really just journalism, or expressing ourselves differently,” Addie said.

The Central Scoop—and FHC Sports Report—have brought their producers many little meaningful moments, and it isn’t anything that these students would want to change.

“I know this is a cheesy cliche, but I really love all of [my moments with Evvy and Ella],” Addie said. “I think I have a lot of fun recording with everyone. I like editing, even though it sounds kind of boring. Every time we’re in there, I always have a lot of fun.”