<\/p>\n
TAMPA \u2014 As we celebrate high school scholarship recipients this week, we’re bringing you the story of a Tampa teenager who plans to pursue a career in journalism.<\/p>\n
The day we met Lilly Molina, it was straight to a National Honor Society officer meeting after school. Molina is the president.<\/p>\n
\u201cI was vice president last year and I was very surprised,\u201d he said. \u201cThat’s what encouraged me to be more involved in school when I saw that someone like me, who was an underdog, people didn’t really know me, but I got vice president and now that I’m president, it’s very motivating. me.”<\/p>\n
This drive to succeed is something that seems to have come naturally to Molina. With a perfect 4.0 GPA, it’s no wonder she was selected as one of the Spectrum Bay News 9 High School Scholarships.<\/p>\n
“I actually want to be a journalist when I grow up,” she said. “I’m going to school to be a journalist.”<\/p>\n
Despite considering herself an underdog, Molina is actually ahead of most journalism students her age. She will also graduate from high school with her associate of arts degree.<\/p>\n
\u201cI spent the last four years from my freshman year trying to make it through the varsity program,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Molina is also an editor and writer for The Daily Falcon, the Leto High School newspaper.<\/p>\n
This is the paper’s first year, and Molina got involved right away. It was one of his first opportunities to put his dream to the test.<\/p>\n
“Covid 2020, all I could do was write, but I wasn’t very good with descriptions and details and with pictures to portray a whole scene in someone’s mind with just words,” he said.<\/p>\n
“Then I said, ‘What’s a good way of writing where you can just tell it like it is and report and do good and have a positive impact?’ And that was journalism.”<\/p>\n
Molina and her best friend also launched their own podcast on Spotify.<\/p>\n
The podcast aims to help students navigate high school, something Molina mastered. Next year, she’ll rise from the ashes as a freshman when she’s a proud Phoenix at Elon University in North Carolina.<\/p>\n