I have always had a panglossian sense of optimism — I still do, despite nearly four decades in journalism that would have cured any sensible person of hope.

The main reason for that is a reporter from Iowa named Jackie Majerus who wound up sitting at an adjoining desk at the upstate New York daily where I snagged a job in 1987. For Jackie, journalism had always been a calling.

In high school, she edited an underground paper that kept publishing through her senior year, a thing so rare that I’ve never heard of anyone else pulling it off. She studied journalism in college..

That’s how Jackie ended up beside me. A few years later, we got married, just blocks away, at a Tiffany-designed chapel I’d helped save from becoming a nightclub.

After relocating to work at a Connecticut paper, we agreed to oversee a journalism group for local students who might create some printable stuff. The first meeting in 1994 attracted one guy.

Fortunately, the club grew, spurred by our rare notion that teenagers should be taken seriously. Our students tackled stories on everything from teen suicide to school shootings. They learned not just the basics but also why journalism matters.

Once we started putting their work online in 1996, we began attracting young people from distant places at a time when email alone connected us. Even so, the group exploded in size and ultimately became a nonprofit, Youth Journalism International.

Since 2011, Jackie has devoted nearly all of her time, as a volunteer, to nurturing YJI and the hundreds of students who have gone through its program to become published writers, photographers and artists.

Hailing from half the countries on the planet, they regularly talk on Zoom with Jackie and each other. Many have also met in person at one of YJI’s gatherings.

After last summer’s conference in Cape Town, South Africa, YJI student Annamika Konkola from Oregon, said, “I am just one of hundreds of people who will say Jackie’s been one of the single biggest positive influences in our lives. There are hundreds of writers around the world whose lives and writing have been changed because she refused to give up on journalism’s future.”

After 16 of those students nominated her, Jackie was inducted last week into the New England Newspaper Hall of Fame, a rare recognition that brought tears to my eyes and joy to my heart.

At the podium there, Jackie said, “Journalism is not for the faint of heart, nor for anyone trying to get rich. Being a reporter means swimming hard against a strong current of distrust, building a reputation for honesty and truth in a suspicious world. Doesn’t sound like a great career path, does it?”

Even so, it’s the path we chose and have rarely regretted. Probably one reason we haven’t soured on it is the daily infusion of idealism that comes from being around eager young people like Annamika.

The audience at her induction heard Jackie tell them confidently that “journalism has a bright future — because I see it every day.”

I am lucky to share my days with a woman who embraces journalism so much that she encourages bright young people all over the world to pursue it.