Madison Lietz’s face lights up as she is announced as the 2024 Keizer Distinguished Young Woman on April 29, inside the Ken Collins Theater at McNary High School. (JOSHUA MANES/Keizertimes) 
Madison Lietz perfroms an original poem for the talent portion of the Distinguished Young Women program on April 29, inside the Ken Collins Theater at McNary High School. (JOSHUA MANES/Keizertimes) 
2024 Distinguished Young Woman of Keizer Madison Lietz poses with 1973 Keizer Junior Miss Denise Welman Nelson on April 29, inside the Ken Collins Theater at McNary High School. The Keizer Junior Miss pageant later became Distinguished Young Women.(JOSHUA MANES/Keizertimes) 
Madison Lietz hugs Keizer Mayor Cathy Clark after being announced as the 2024 Keizer Distinguished Young Woman on April 29, inside the Ken Collins Theater at McNary High School. (JOSHUA MANES/Keizertimes) 
Madison Lietz performs a high-knee as part of the fitness routine during the Distinguished Young Women program on April 29, inside the Ken Collins Theater at McNary High School. (JOSHUA MANES/Keizertimes)
Student journalist Madison Lietz started a new internship with the Keizertimes this week.
After competing in the Keizer’s Distinguished Young Woman scholarship program, Lietz was contacted for her interest in an internship. Lietz is a junior at McNary High School, who since last year has shown a growing interest in journalism.
Lietz first made contact with the newspaper by meeting Robin Barney, a media advisor for the Keizertimes, through a mock interview for the Distinguished Young Women of Keizer (DYW) Scholarship Program.
“(Robin is) really interested in helping her community,” said Fatima Falcon, program director for Keizer’s DYW. “She wanted to make that pathway to provide this opportunity to a local student to see what it would be like to work in a local newspaper.”
Barney was a judge for the mock interview to help give all the program girls “tips and tricks” before their day of competition.
“Her answers told me (she) needed to be an intern with us,” Barney said.
Barney connected Lietz with Keizertimes publisher Lyndon Zaitz, who interviewed Lietz last week.
According to Barney, it has been about a year and a half since the Keizertimes has had an intern. She says having an internship for journalism is good because the career can have a lot of “different arms and directions” a person can write about.
“It gets your feet wet,” Barney said. Internships can show a person what it’s really like to have the job and see what it’s about.
“It’s wanting to be in journalism, and then finding your niche, an internship is the best place to be,” she said.
Lietz is most looking forward to gaining new experience and knowledge about journalism through the internship, a career field Lietz hopes to continue with after high school.
“It’s crazy to think about where I was last year to where I’m going now,” she said.
Lietz first started to learn about journalism from her Scholastic Journalism class at McNary. She had initially joined the class for an extra English credit, but Lietz said she quickly fell in love with it.
“Learning to write in a different style fascinated me, I began to feel more confident,” she said.
Lietz said journalism brought a new found love for many things she’s now interested in, like photography. Starting journalism helped her feel connected to her work and those around her as a writer, and is now seriously considering journalism being a part of her future.
“Even if I don’t stick entirely with journalism after high school, it is still definitely a part of my plan,” Lietz said.