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“There’s so many people here”
Feb 25, 2025
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Your donation supports the student journalists of McIntosh High School. Your contribution allows us to cover our annual website hosting costs, to help pay printing costs for "Back to Mac" magazine, and continuing education for staff, such as SNO trainings and MediaNow! editorial leadership training.
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About the Contributors
CJ Boxhill, Multimedia
CJ Boxhill is a junior at McIntosh and is serving his first year on staff as a part of the Multimedia team. He plans to focus on helping people share their experiences and public speaking opportunities.
Boxhill is a current member of the Spirit of McIntosh Marching Band, he serves a leadership role as percussion logistics in the band. He also serves as the Vice President of the Skills USA club. Boxhill has won two Rookie Of The Year awards and also two Student Choice awards. Boxhill made silver academic recognition these past two years. He is also a McIntosh ambassador. Boxhill has been working at Chick-Fil-A for the past six months and serves as a team member there.
When Boxhill is not working or at school he enjoys playing video games or hanging out with his friends. He is very interested in politics and law. Boxhill is the last of his family to attend McIntosh High School, his sister Davian and Cousins Katrina and Chris have all attended McIntosh. One of his biggest goals in life is to be elected as a future President of the United States.
Grace Lovejoy, Editor-in-Chief
Grace Lovejoy is serving as the Editor-In-Chief for 2024-2025 school year. Lovejoy has been on staff for three years now and served as the Features Editor last year. Lovejoy has won 3 Best of SNO pieces, including her first piece “Collision course: teens and golf cart accidents in Peachtree City” which was the first for the Trail.
Lovejoy has been an Ambassador and a part of McIntosh BETA Club for 2 years. She was involved in the Student Press Law Center’s New Voices program in 2023 and won a Best of Sno award for her story “The five freedoms in the First,” recapping her experience. Lovejoy has been involved in theater for 2 years and has performed and worked backstage on numerous shows. This year she is serving as the Historian for the McIntosh Thespians Troupe.
Lovejoy is eager to meet the new staff and have another successful year on the Trail.
Betty Jane Plitt, Staff
Betty Jane Plitt is currently a freshman at McIntosh and serving her first year on the Trail. Plitt often spends her free time reading, doing homework, listening to music or doing taekwondo, in which she has a black belt. Her current favorite book series is A Good Girl’s Guide to Murder, which she highly recommends. Additionally, Plitt’s current favorite artists include Chappell Roan, Sabrina Carpenter, Laufey and the genre of folk music as a whole.
Plitt also enjoys volunteering at places such as the Midwest Food Bank or Royal Animal Refuge. Although when she gets a chance away from her usual activities, Plitt is also part of colorguard in the McIntosh Marching Band. She specializes in flag currently but hopes to expand her skills to rifle and sabre.
Plitt does not currently hold any achievements at McIntosh High School as she has not attended for very long but she was on honor roll for every grade at J.C. Booth Middle School. Plitt was also part of Beta Club and Thespian Society at J.C. Booth, eager to get involved wherever she can. Now as a member of the Trail, Plitt hopes to expand her knowledge on writing, on-site journaling and meeting deadlines.
Jozlynn Smith, Staff
Jozlynn Smith is a new student at McIntosh. She is a freshman and is also serving her first year on the Trail Staff. She wants to focus on getting the truth out for others to read and relate to. Smith wants her stories to give people the enlightenment of their peers, and give people the spotlight they deserve. Smith believes that everyone is a story, and has thought-provoking things about them.
In 2023, Smith joined an international writing competition and came in the top 10 of all the people in her state. She wrote an outstanding essay, giving an insight of the book she was assigned. Placing in the top 10 in her state, Smith received an award that is hung up where everyone can see at her grandparents house. Smith also received a first place for an art piece she had put in her local art show.
Smith is a creative writer and artist but most of all she is an expert on food. She loves Dr.Pepper and mozzarella sticks. She is a picky eater but is up to trying new restaurants and new food items.
Camilla O’Connell, Photo Editor
Camilla O’Connell is a senior at McIntosh. This is her first year on the Trail, though she is a four year editor of the Legend Yearbook and is their Photo Editor for the 2025 book.
O’Connell spent a week of her summer as a National Youth Correspondent representing Georgia at the Washington Journalism and Media Conference, in Washington DC, where she met many working journalists and learned how to write in Smart Brevity.
O’Connell has won three All-Georgia awards for her storytelling and photography, one superior award in portrait photography and was the first place winner for the Georgia Scholastic Press Association’s 2023 on the spot photo contest. She has also won the Laws of Life essay contest twice. Her work has been published in local news sites.
Fun fact she fought the Citizen and won because they used one of her photos without her permission or giving her credit. She has photographed every home football game in her high school career.
Outside of journalism O’Connell is the President of the Knitting and Crochet club, is in Beta club, Key club, We the People, Chorus, Advanced Drama, the English National Honors Society and the National Honor Society.
When she’s not doing something on campus she can be found at the pool as a head lifeguard, on the rink playing hockey, making content for Joestens as one of their Ambassadors or hanging out with friends.
“Though I love photography, my favorite part of journaling is getting to interview and hear people’s stories and being a microphone to share them.”
Nyla Kërr, News Editor
News Editor Nyla Kërr is spending her second year on the McIntosh Trail. Kërr has always been passionate about writing and has been honoring her craft for the past six years. She was a part of the first Trail staff to win a School Newspapers Online Distinguished Site award.
Kërr has also received two academic awards for outstanding achievement in biology and English. She has also been awarded the President’s Award for Educational Excellence.
When she is not buried deep in her classwork, Kërr enjoys spending time with her family, playing the guitar and doing calisthenics.
Maddie Hines, Social Media
Madison Hines is a Junior at McIntosh and is serving her second year on staff as part of the Multimedia team.
In her freshman year, she was Vice President of her class. Hines is currently a McIntosh ambassador and has also done debate at the state level. Hines is interested in things like creative writing, film and law. In fact, from 2017-2019, she spent three weeks of each summer staying on campus at Emory University for this summer program called SIG (Summer Institute for the Gifted.) There she took classes like song writing, filming, working a camera, creative writing, things of that nature. At Emory, she was able to see what life would be like as a college student. She hopes to obtain some degree in law as well as journalism in the future.
During her free time, she likes to play volleyball, bake, watch movies, and spend time with friends and family. Because she is new on staff, she hopes to learn new things and new life skills such as responsibility, punctuality and reliability.
Yasemin Kalpakci, Features Editor
Yasemin Kalpakci is a junior at McIntosh High School and currently serves as the Features Editor for the McIntosh Trail. She joined the Trail staff in early 2024 and was part of the team that won the SNO Distinguished Site Award, the first for the school.
In addition to her journalism accomplishments, Kalpakci has also achieved success in other areas. She and her fellow staffers won a Superior award in GSPA, and her art has been published on the board of education.
Kalpakci has been involved in the Beta Club since elementary school and is an active volunteer at animal shelters and various school activities. She was instrumental in creating her old school’s World Food Club, promoting cultural exchange through food.
Outside of school, Kalpakci enjoys listening to Lana Del Rey, creating drama in The Sims, binge-watching Gilmore Girls, and spending hours on Pinterest. Like many high school students, she’s uncertain about her future plans but hopes to figure it out soon.