Crafting news stories for FHC’s broadcast show, FX—short for Forest Hills Exposure—permits almost full autonomy for students in deciding what to make. For junior Raegan Price, this creative liberty is the best aspect of the course.
FX airs twice each school day, informing students about recent highlights and upcoming events. The five-minute segments are televised after both first and fifth hour. Raegan is currently a member of the afternoon broadcast, dubbed PM FX.
Before entering high school, Raegan already knew that she wanted to be a part of the show.
“I think seeing my brother on FX when I was in middle school [is what inspired me to take the class],” Raegan said. “I saw that and was like, ‘Wow, that looks like the most fun thing ever. That’s what I really want to do.’ I was on air for the first time on FX, and I thought, ‘This is what I want to do for the rest of my life.’”
Raegan entered the prerequisite class for FX, Media Communications, as a freshman. Because of this, she joined the broadcast team the next year—an advancement that only a few sophomores achieve each year—and will continue until she graduates.
Before high school, Raegan was blind to the immense effort that goes into running a successful news show. FX students learn the fundamentals of producing the segments by rotating through the various behind-the-scenes positions. For example, Raegan’s personal favorite role, “Switchers,” is appropriately named for the shifting between camera angles and pre-filmed content.
Because of the freedom that FX permits, Raegan enjoys the break from the traditional class structure.
“[FX] feels like it’s not schoolwork,” Raegan said. “It feels real because you have to develop all your own kinds of stories, and we have to produce the show. Everything is made by the students. [Supervisor Jeff] Manders only really checks it over to tell you, ‘This is good,’ or ‘Please don’t do this.’”
While the majority of the workload takes place in crafting stories and production, the audience typically views only the final-draft stories and the real-time actions of members during the show. The segments consist of four sections—host, weather, news, and sports—in which FX members balance sharing information with entertaining their audience. As with the production roles, FX members take turns in the different positions.
Having one’s voice heard and face seen by virtually the entire school is anxiety-inducing, per general consensus. Despite this, Raegan has grown to find being on air comforting, sometimes prompting smoother dialogue from her than with face-to-face encounters.
Being on air has become an outlet of sorts for Raegan, showing her what she wants to pursue post-high school.
“For me, [being on air is] the exact opposite [of what you would expect],” Raegan said. “Being on air makes me feel like I can finally really speak, and, interestingly enough, I’ve found over time that I make fewer speaking mistakes on air than I do off [air], and it doesn’t feel [stressful] facing the entire school. It’s almost a feeling as though it’s home for me, which is really why I want to pursue it as a career.”
Even though broadcasting in the general sense attracts Raegan, she hopes to one day work with sports specifically. In the past, she has debated whether to pursue a career in radio. However, as radio is a dying medium, she has found broadcasting to be a safer option, as the “real-life” voices of announcers are unlikely to be replaced by AI.
Raegan is open to the possibility of working with any sport, but her ideal scenario involves hockey. Her career would be doing play-by-play broadcasting of the icy competition, as she finds it both fast-paced and entertaining.
If feasible, she hopes to work with the Professional Women’s Hockey League, an up-and-coming area of athletics. The league was founded only recently, in Aug. 2023, and has limited announcers. However, with its anticipated growth, Raegan hopes to work in the sport in the future.
Understandably, Raegan’s interest in sports broadcasting has emerged from a general liking for and involvement in sports. While she has yet to learn hockey herself, she has participated in sports since early childhood.
“I started playing sports when I was three,” Raegan said. “They’ve always been [around me]. If there’s any kind of sport going on, it’s on my TV at home. It’s always been something that I’ve been really exposed to with a variety of different sports.”
Raegan is a current member of the Varsity Girls Bowling Team and the Junior Varsity Girls Tennis Team. However, the journey that led Raegan to these two sports was one filled with an expansive sampling.
Her childhood was characterized by dance (a seven-year endeavor), soccer, basketball, gymnastics, volleyball, golf, and tee-ball, which eventually evolved into a lengthy career as a softball player. The last-mentioned sport was held in particular high regard by Raegan, as she made it her “entire personality” for the seven-year duration in which she participated.
In college, Raegan plans to continue playing golf and join club tennis.
“I think that if I didn’t play as many sports as I did, I still would have loved broadcasting, but I maybe would have been more on the news or weather-information side,” Raegan said. “I think just learning all about these different sports, you get to really see how different players’ minds turn. [That is what] has made sports what was so specifically interesting to me.”
Raegan hopes to attend either Boston University, Ball State University, or Central Michigan University next year, all of which have distinguished broadcasting programs. Boston University, Raegan’s dream school, allows for access to all of the professional sports teams in the bustling city. Because of this, the school offers fantastic opportunities for students to become involved in the industry. Ball State, by contrast, has a student-run broadcast similar to FX, which would allow for a familiar environment for Raegan. Being located near Indianapolis, the school allows for immersion in racing culture, another enticing factor.
Wherever she finds herself after high school, the value in recognizing others’ perspectives will continue to influence how Raegan approaches interacting with others.
“I think that probably the most valuable thing that I have learned [from broadcasting] is that not everybody looks at things the same way,” Raegan said. “A thing that you can see as a good idea or a good path to go, maybe to other people, it isn’t. It gets your mind kind of turning at what everybody’s different perspectives can be.”
