The Beauty of Newspapers

By: Brian Orloff Journalists are more apt to experience a beauty pageant from the audience, covering the proceedings, than up on stage. But Eryn Lowe will do her part to glam up our profession when she struts her stuff, vying for that coveted tiara and the title of Miss Pocatello. If she captures it this April, she will be one step closer in her quest to being named Miss Idaho, and then ? drum roll, please ? Miss America.

Lowe, 20, is a junior at Idaho State University whose love of newspapers transcends her role as news editor on her school paper, The Bengal. Lowe says her Miss America aspirations are steered by her enthusiasm for journalism. And in the part of the beauty contest where judges grill contestants on their high-minded, socially conscious ideals, Eryn will stump for media literacy in local high schools.

"I'm so passionate about [newspapers]," she says. "That's kind of why I'm doing this: because I have something that I want people to know."

But Lowe is not just all talk. She proposes a campaign to get more students interacting and developing relationships with newspapers. "The Idaho State Journal puts the newspapers in schools and I would love to see that go statewide," Lowe says. "Also, I would like to see the schools giving back to the newspaper by having a student every week write an article about something going on in school ... [They could] have a page of all the high school students and their writing."

Lowe's platform is all about visibility and communicating with students ?something she says she'll happily do, especially if it means more kids will start picking up newspapers: "I also want to get into schools, and talk to them about how important it is to read the newspapers and get involved."

Lowe's passion for journalism came early. The young hopeful says she's always loved to write, and in her teens began experimenting with broadcast media. ("I had a news show in high school," she says.) For Lowe, achieving career goals means maintaining her role on the school newspaper staff, continuing her broadcast work and her studies as a mass communications student.

What do her newspaper friends think about her challenging perceptions of their field as decidedly unglamorous? "I'll have to bring that up in the next news meeting," she says, laughing.