How was Twist started? How was the name chosen? Twist was started last year by Ezgi Ustandag because she was getting bored just being an all-star student/Presidential Scholar/etc., etc. Actually, I’m not entirely sure what her motivation was to be honest. The direction I’m pushing it in is to spread information about fringe activities and allow lots of people to learn more about journalism. The name is a mystery to me as well, but I assume it has something to do with the whole "Cyclone" thing. What is the goal of Twist? We want to have a place where a student can find any information about school- such as teacher sites, schedules, and announcements- in one place, as well as other things that may interest them such as local events. We also want to help gt people involved in whatever journalistic medium they’re interested in, whether it be writing, video, photography, or even social media. What kinds of things do you report on? Anything and everything in our area! We’ve reported on sports at the high school and college level, music festivals, plays, and so much more. Is the Wednesday morning newscast going to become a weekly thi ng? Not quite yet. We want to get people besides me involved a lot more, which means guiding them through the writing, filming, and editing process. Also planning ahead a lot more will be required, since it was a bit last-minute and some teachers didn’t even know about it. As of right now it’ll be every two or three weeks, and only if we get a lot more people involved will it be weekly. What are the logistics of Twist? How do the articles get chosen, assigned, etc. We have a facebook page with all the staff in it, and I post story ideas there when I find events going on. People comment on the posts to claim stories. If I know someone has a special interest in an area, I usually contact them to give them first dibs t the article/pictures/etc. Sometimes staff has ideas about articles, and all I have to do is approve it and they’re good to go. We’re in the process of splitting my duties up into 7 smaller positions with me overseeing so that everything can run a bit smoother and events (like the Boy’s Golf state qualifiers) don’t slip through the cracks. How do you write articles/get people to write articles? I just find people who are involved in whatever I’m writing about and try to make an entertaining and concise article. I encourage all of our writers to do the same, because that makes editing much easier. Also making sure that we are writing timely articles is a big deal- we don’t need stuff about events a month ago or in the future, because people will forget about it by then. Do you think the online website is popular among students? I think there are some people who check it often, and some who still don’t know that it exists. Our biggest obstacle to becoming a part of a student’s web routine is the inconsistent updating, which is totally on me. That’s why we’re adding more people to manage individual sections, to spread the workload a bit. I think once we get everything running smoothly, especially with the calendar, it will get a lot more traffic. What are the differences between the Web and Twist? The Web and Twist are really different. We don’t do any print publications, and are moving more towards being totally multimedia, with an emphasis on videography. We do a lot of social media work, and have a Facebook, Twitter, Photobucket, and YouTube account, so we try to get to a lot of people through that. Also, we’re a club, so anyone is welcome to join. Most of our members have experience in the area they’re interested in, but the ones that don’t are able to work with a lot of people who do. We’re all about teaching each other new things and helping people find where their interests lie. Where do you see Twist going in the next five years? Thanks to a lot of young members who are really interested in what we’re doing, I see us expanding and eventually being a normal part of Ames High student life. We want to have links to all the teacher pages available in case someone misplaces an address, have the announcements up, and of course get the Quick Twist a lot more consistent. If we can build up a strong group of people to make that happen, I think we can easily become one of the greatest things Ames High has to offer. This, of course, requires a lot of dedicated people, so if you think you’re interested, email us at ahstwist.gmail.com , and we can figure out how to get you involved!