Q: How do you like our school?

A: “I like a lot of the opportunities that school offers, especially the music and writing curriculum and also the fine arts and orchestra as well, but there are some areas I wish offered a little bit more. But within the overall school there’s a lot of good opportunities, and I love that.”

Q: If you could change a single thing about school, what would you choose?

A: “I’d say people need to be more nice.”

Q: What inspired you to start working with the Mountain Echo?

A: “Ever since I was in elementary school, I loved writing stories. I used to do creative writing, make up my own characters and storylines. So in eighth grade, I saw that newswriting was an option I took.”

Q: If you wrote an autobiography, what would you title it? Why?

A: “I probably just go with something basic, like ‘Starting my Life’.”

Q: What is your family like?

A: “So actually, I have an interesting history. Both of my parents were born in Germany, and they moved over here to the United States. The rest of my family is in Germany. Aunts, uncles, grandparents, everybody. It’s just my mom, dad, brother and I in the USA. I mean, we, as for us, are really close, but sometimes it’s just hard because everybody else is so far away, so we don’t have family ties like other families here.”

Q: If you had the chance to move anywhere in the world, where would you go?

A: “Definitely Italy. Over the summer, actually, I went to Europe on vacation to visit our family members over there, and then I went to Italy and Rome, and it was absolutely gorgeous. If I could choose anywhere to move, I would definitely choose Rome or Venice.”

Q: Say you were to perform in the school talent show, what act would you pick?

A: “I would probably do either something math or music related. For the math, I can’t think of anything off the top of my head right now, but music definitely. Last year, we got a group together and performed a quartet.”

Q: Who is someone that has inspired you, your whole life, not just in the journalism field?

A: “I’d say Ghandi, he once said to ‘be the change you wish to see in the world,’ and I live my life by that. I wrote an article about the pep rallies, I’d like to see that change. That’s why I did that. But I also apply that to other subjects. I want to be a clinical engineer or environmental engineer later on because I want to stop the effects of climate change in the environment. I think it’s the same thing that we’re doing.”

Q: If you could give a piece of advice to a new freshman, who just transferred to Altoona, what would you tell them?

A: “ Give the high school time, the first year is going to be a lot. Just I mean, the enormity of the buildings can be a little confusing.”

Q: If you could have any superpower or ability in the world, what would it be?

A: “I would say teleportation to be able to visit my family more often.”