The High Point Legacy: Alumni Spotlight: Nicky Loomis (89-95)
My brief bio—
My most recent stop has been, for the past five years, at Crossroads School for the Arts & Sciences where I’ve served as the school’s newspaper advisor. It’s been a wild ride: teaching journalism to high schoolers who sincerely have taught me more about journalism than any other job I’ve had. To be a good editor to these students, I’ve learned the importance of finding an interesting “way in” to every story they write, and particularly for those students who write opinion pieces.
In March of 2018, I flew to New York as our magazine, Crossfire, won a Columbia Scholastic Press Association Gold Crown Award as one of the top 50 magazines in the country for high school and college publications. My students in the past six months have published Op/Eds for USA Today, CNN.com and the Santa Monica Daily Press, in addition to our publication. This spring, we won a second Crown Award.
My students have taught me just as much as I have taught them. This next generation of storytellers is unique in that they’ve grown up with digital media. I’ve seen such creativity applied to storytelling through digital media. Whether a photo slideshow, podcast or digitally illustrated first-person account, good writing still is the nucleus to which all good stories spin around.
I started my career in journalism 15 years ago at my hometown paper, the Pasadena Star-News as a hungry rookie reporter working for free. Oh, the wonderful world of local news. My mentors at the paper and later, lifelong friends, were the late Janette Williams who died in 2013, and Public Editor Larry Wilson, whose weekly column I still read. Janette was Scottish and a real old-school reporter, the kind who told me, “Well, pick up the phone and ask them.” Our cubicles faced each other and like any good story goes, we got to talking. There was something she could hear in my voice she thought might work on paper. She encouraged me to write opinion pieces and full of fear, I acquiesced.
As a fiction writer, I spent 2012 in Budapest, Hungary, where I completed a first draft of a novel on a Fulbright Scholarship. I conducted interviews and researched the climate of Hungary from 1948 to the present, in order to continue examining how memory – both private and collective – is lost during times of pain – and how this loss has affected cultural identity in post-Communist Hungary and personal identity abroad.
I love humor writing, reading (Currently reading “Dune” for the first time), my two dogs Alfie and Pickles, my family and friends. I’m also trying to learn photography. I recently purchased my first DSLR camera and am taking photography lessons on YouTube. I go out to Joshua Tree to document nature in the changing seasons.
My High Point Experience—
I attended High Point from Kindergarten through 6th grade. I have the most wonderful memories of High Point. I remember the song we would sing, “Hail High Point Academy.” I remember “Meet the Masters” on Friday afternoons (we’d get to learn about a painter then emulate the painter.) Field Day! Recitals! Those small cartons of orange juice and graham crackers neatly laid out in rows at snack! In-n-Out truck on “hot lunch” days.
High Point helped me to grow into the person I have become. I am proud to be an alum because the school really valued, as I look back on things, how important creativity was to learning. As much as I can remember a math test, which is not at all, I can very much remember all of the wonderfully interactive projects my teachers gave us. I remember the classroom space was always interactive. I remember arts and music were always a part of the day.
As an adult, I sometimes yearn for the space for creativity that was instilled in me at a young age. I can go on. I just loved it and still am in contact with friends from childhood there.
I had the opportunity to come back and visit with Mrs. Richman. She helped me with a Pasadena Star-News column I wrote about kids using technology. It was great fun to go back and see campus and interview the kids. I was thrilled to see Norma writing fiction herself.
Personal Observations and Reflections—
I have a great photo of me wearing “mop shoes” for an “Invention Day” project. It must have been in 5th grade. I also remember “Business Town” so vividly. It was like the original “Shark Tank.” I sold English Muffin pizzas. It was a pretty good business, lol! Toaster oven, marinara, mozzarella – sold! I also remember the fierce “Pog” battles on the playground. I would come home with a new “slammer,” proud of my loot. Overall, that blacktop was the epitome of childhood fun. Foursquare, handball, tetherball. What a life!