Amelia Miller: Journalist, Athlete, and Scholar

Amelia Miller is an 8th-grade student journalist and athlete. She was the editor-in-chief of the school newspaper during the first semester. Amelia was in Journalism Club last year, and she kept Pawprints, our online newspaper, going while we did online learning. Amelia was a person that Ms. Garrison could always rely on. She is an excellent student and an outstanding athlete that plays for a lot of sports teams. This year Amelia played on CPM’s Cross Country, Volleyball, and undefeated 8th-grade girls Basketball team. She continues to participate in community soccer and basketball teams. We all wanted to know what it felt like trying to juggle those things in middle school.

Amelia knows what it’s like to be new on a team. Amelia hadn’t considered trying out volleyball at first, but she did it anyway. Amelia’s first volleyball game here was nerve-racking for her and became a little scary because they played a tough team that spiked the ball a lot, and it was hard to keep up. Still, the CPM team won all but one game this season. The secret to volleyball, she says, “is to trust your teammates, communicate with your teammates, always go for the ball, and always call it.”

We also wanted to know what Amelia enjoys in school, and what she is looking forward to in high school. Amelia doesn’t plan to go play volleyball in high school but she might do

soccer. Amelia also enjoys other sports outside of schools such as soccer, basketball, tennis, a little bit of skiing, cross country, and track and field. She had friends that she liked playing with on the same team, in basketball. Amelia has some injuries that involved a sore wrist and a twisted foot, but it never stopped her and she kept going throughout the season.

 Amelia gave some advice to new journalists and athletes: “Find a time when you can to finish homework. There’s nothing worse than going to practices and having no time to finish assignments. Once you get ahead, stay ahead. And another piece of advice would be to find people on your teams who will just support you; there’s always at least one person who will always have your back, and associate yourself with those people, not the negative ones. Mindset is key.”