Starting May 18 and for a full month, New Canaan High School senior Mackenzie Lewis will help us report on what’s happening in town through the increasingly popular NCHS Senior Internship Program.
NCHS senior Mackenzie Lewis is interning with NewCanaanite.com through the NCHS Senior Internship Program, running May 18 to June 17. Credit: Michael Dinan
An Elon University-bound student-athlete who has been a staffer at the high school paper, the Courant, for two years, Mackenzie is a native New Canaanite who entered NCHS as a sophomore from New Canaan Country School.
Over the next four-plus weeks, you’ll see her byline appear as she reports hard news (police, government, schools), spot features downtown and profiles of local residents and businesses.
We talked about her interest in journalism and experience at the Courant on a recent afternoon as the first day of the internship approaches. Here’s our conversation:
New Canaanite: What made you want to do the Senior Internship Program? Because it’s gotten a lot more popular in recent years, but it’s still maybe a quarter of the students in your class do it. What made you want to do it?
Mackenzie Lewis: Well first of all, I thought it was cool how—I take a lot of AP classes—so, I’m basically done after these last two weeks, so it seems kind of cool at first to not do anything in school. But then even after a week of not doing anything, it gets kind of boring. So I figured I might as well do something different, and then when I heard about this Senior Internship Program, I knew from past kids that had done it last year that they thought it was really cool to go and do something else.
And then the process is you sort of show your interests and talk about things you like to do.
Yes.
So what were some of the things you put down, do you think, that ultimately had the committee connecting you with the New Canaanite?
Well, I met with Ms. Carroll and a couple of other people back on the committee in December or January, and basically we had to fill out a form of a couple of different things we were interested in, and we talked about what we wanted to do. And we had an interview. I talked about how I was involved with the Courant but I wasn’t really sure what I wanted to do. I thought I wanted to go into communications, but I wasn’t sure if I wanted to do journalism. And I also said I was interested in advertising, so that was part of it, too.
When did you join the Courant?
Junior year. I came into New Canaan High School sophomore year, because I used to go to New Canaan Country School. And sophomore year, I really didn’t know much about it, and then junior year a couple of my friends did it, so I was really excited to try it out.
And you liked it, because you stayed with it.
Yes.
What did you like about it?
At first I was a reporter, last year, and you get to go from each section—you try sports news, arts, features, opinions a little bit, you get to try everything out—and I just found it interesting how you knew a lot more stuff about the school that you didn’t know as a normal student. And it kind of got you involved with just looking at certain things. My sister is also a reporter for the Courant this year, she’s a junior, and she went to the Poetry Fest the other day, and she probably would not have gone to that if she wasn’t involved in Courant.
I find the same thing professionally, doing this in the community as opposed to the school. You learn a lot more and it forces you to get out and about and meet people. It does create these layers of information and memories. My first job I covered the town of Greenwich for the local daily paper there, and my first shift was Saturday to Wednesday, so I covered every weekend. And a lot of the weekend coverage was community events—it could be a Junior League Touch-a-Truck fundraiser, or a new exhibition opening at the Bruce Museum, or a neighborhood association’s block party—and I always loved that stuff and felt that if I hadn’t had to cover it, I never would have known about it, you know?
Yes.
So tell me, you are going to Elon?
Yes.
What made you choose Elon?
Well, it’s actually the first college I visited, because my grandparents live in Raleigh-Durham, North Carolina, and sophomore year my dad was like, ‘We’re going on a college visit,’ and I was like, ‘What? Why?’ So we went there, this was before I started doing journalism, but they took us on the tour and they have a communications school—that’s the big, main thing they’re known for, or at least that’s the thing the tour guide kept pointing out, because it’s one of their main schools and he was a cinema major or something like that—and he kept talking about it. I thought it was really cool, I’d never thought about it before. And that was one of the main things that drew me toward it, and I went back and visited again and just loved North Carolina and the school there. It just felt right.
What was it like for you, being a new student at New Canaan High School as a sophomore?
It was a little hard at first, but I did know some people from before from sports and stuff, because I have always lived in New Canaan. I went to Country School from kindergarten. But it was a little hard because it was a change from 60 kids to 300 and something, but it wasn’t too bad.
Did sports ease your transition? Because you do a lot of sports.
Yes. I started sophomore year I made varsity field hockey, and then varsity ice hockey. So it was good to immediately jump into something and feel immediately involved in that sport. Because I knew some kids who played sports.
Didn’t ice hockey win a championship?
Yes, sophomore year we won states. And then we haven’t won anything since then, but we got close, to the FCIAC finals sophomore year too, and we’ve been getting close every year.
And did you end up a captain of ice hockey?
Yes. Well, back to FCIACs: We also won FCIAC championships for field hockey this year, which was really cool. We beat Darien. So for field hockey, I was a captain of the team this year and then for ice hockey, I was a captain junior and senior year.
Wow, that’s cool. Do you have siblings? You said you have a sister, who is younger.
Yes. I have a twin brother, first.
At the high school?
Yes, at the high school.
Fritz?
Parker.
Oh, Parker. I don’t know where I got ‘Fritz.’
And then my sister and brother who are juniors, too, and they’re twins. And then I have a younger brother Campbell who is in eighth grade.
I feel like the name ‘Parker Lewis’ is familiar too, for a sport.
He’s on the ice hockey team.
Ice hockey, right. My brother covered some of that. Was he also a captain maybe?
No, but he’s up there.
He’s up there. Let’s talk about the internship. It’s been a very basic overview so far about what you’re going to be doing. But what are you looking forward to about the next month the most, in terms of doing this stuff?
Well, I’ve leaned toward sports a bit and I think I’ve almost gotten too comfortable in it, so I think I want to expand and try a lot of different things involved in journalism, which I think the New Canaanite can offer.
That’s awesome. I’ve very excited you’re doing this. You are the perfect person for this, too.
Thank you.