HEBRON — For more than a year during the pandemic, Hebron Academy’s student magazine stopped publishing.

Then, Nola Goodwin came along and gave the biannual publication a fresh start.

As a junior, Goodwin became the editor of The Hebron Review, which had last been printed in 2019. She recruited student contributors and redesigned the magazine layout, soon publishing her first edition in the fall of 2021.

“I ended up kind of like rebuilding it,” she said. “We got a whole bunch of graphic designers and new staff writers, and it kind of took off from there.”

The main focus during her two-year tenure has been improving the design of the publication and creating dedicated sections.

“Every page was different and there was no running theme throughout it,” she said, adding that their design program was difficult to use.

The magazine features a wide array of student work including opinion columns, poems, essays, artwork and photography. Everything from the writing, to the editing, to the design of the publication is done by students, including the Hebron Review’s website.

Goodwin said the most challenging part of her job has been “tracking people down and getting them to turn (their submissions in) on time,” she said. “I’ve definitely had to be a little more assertive than I was in the past.”

Barbara Waterman, the faculty adviser for the publication, said the spring edition Goodwin produced was one of the best issues since the magazine began in 2014.

In addition to her work with The Hebron Review, Goodwin is also a member of the alpine ski team and a peer writing tutor.

She began attending Hebron Academy as a high school freshman, drawn to the school for its small class sizes, rigorous academics and college preparation program. For three years, she commuted from her home in Turner each day; now a senior, she lives on campus as a student proctor, a role she likened to a resident assistant in college dorms.

This year, Goodwin designed an independent study course focusing on women in literature with help from Waterman, an English teacher at Hebron Academy. In the year-long course, Goodwin read novels like “The Bluest Eye” by Toni Morrison and “Ain’t I a Woman” by bell hooks, and wrote an analysis of each afterward.

But what truly sets Goodwin apart from her peers, Waterman said, is her curiosity.

After reading bell hooks’ writing about the perception of women, Goodwin sent out a survey to all students at Hebron Academy to gauge their perception of feminists and feminisms. She then wrote an analysis which included the results, Waterman said.

Goodwin is also very passionate about contemporary issues, Waterman said. “She reads the newspaper, she talks with her friends. They stay up late into the night debating women’s reproductive health and LGBTQ legislation and all sorts of issues that are important to not just Nola, but but her cohort of friends in the community.”

“She just involves her friends as well and the broader community in her curiosity, (it) sort of pulls other people, in which is a way that I think you know, sort of reflects her leadership style … she is a leader by example for a lot of people.”

Goodwin is planning to attend Georgetown University in Washington, D.C., this fall, where she wants to study English. Being in a walkable city with strong internship opportunities was important to her, and she particularly liked the political aspect of attending school in the nation’s capital.

One piece of advice Goodwin has for rising seniors applying to college: Don’t stress about the SAT test.

“I took that SAT like three times, and I did really well, but I spent so long studying for it,” she said. “I have so many friends who applied and got into amazing schools … (by applying) test-optional. I think I made it a much bigger deal than it actually was, and I kind of wish I had spent that time doing something else.”

This is the 14th article in a series featuring high school seniors as graduation season nears. In the series, the Sun Journal will profile a randomly chosen top 10 student or the equivalent from 18 high schools in central and western Maine.

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