The Roar is heard nationwide
Biddeford High School’s own newspaper, The Roar, was used as a reference by a national news story about high school promposals.
The Roar is contacted by U.S. News & World Report via email.
April 27, 2015
A national newspaper referenced a story posted on The Roar written by one of the staff members.
Staff writer Megan Friel was excited to hear that a story she had written was used in an article for the U.S. National News & World Report.
“I was sitting in Mrs. Pendergrass’ class and she brought up that someone in the room had gotten noticed by a nationwide newspaper and said the promposal story which I did last year,” said Friel. “I texted my parents about it, I was so excited.”
BHS principal, Jeremie Sirois, was excited about the news. However, we were almost not referenced at all.
“I almost deleted the email from them and it almost didn’t happen as far as us getting recognized,” said Sirois. “I get so many emails that are spam, I had gotten emails from U.S. News & World Report before where I’m like why am I getting this? But it’s pretty cool that our little local paper here in the school is being picked up by a national paper.”
Sirois believes for articles from The Roar could be picked up again by other newspapers and news websites.
“Once you hit sort of that national scene, you kind of start looking more and more so we might get picked up again,” Sirois said.
Friel recalls the main idea of the story she had written last year for The Roar.
“I had just seen a lot of stuff about promposals and I thought I could make something out of this and it ended up being a really fun story to write,” Friel said.
According to Friel, her story from last year hadn’t been recognized other than by her friends and fellow writers. Sirois has read the story and believes that it is a great experience that a story from The Roar was picked up.
“It shows off our student’s writing skills, and it shows off our school in a positive light which doesn’t happen enough,” said Sirois. “Had we had the print media only, they would’ve never found us.”
Staff Writer for the U.S. News & World Report Alexandra Pannoni found our local school newspaper through her research of stories about promposals.
“I was working on a story about high school promposals, and while I was doing some research online I came across the article in your student newspaper about the promposal contest at your school,” said Pannoni. “My story ended up being a piece on what high school educators nationwide thought about promposals.”
Sirois admires our school newspaper because it’s a website instead of a printed newspaper and is well functioning.
“We’re seeing high quality articles, and going away from print has been the next step that we needed,” said Sirois. “I think it’s brought it to the next level where a lot of colleges don’t have the kind of website we have for a school newspaper.”
While looking at the website, Pannoni was very impressed and thought it was very organized. Promposals can make for interesting stories in her opinion.
“I thought a promposal contest was an interesting idea,” said Pannoni. “I was curious to hear more about the contest and the promposal trend at your high school in general.”
Sirois also thinks that it could help with the popularity of The Roar and getting the website out there for everybody to see.
“I plan on sharing it with the school committee, who knows what will happen nationally,” said Sirois. “That’s pretty big for us.”
The story written by Staff Writer for the U.S. News & World Report Alexandra Pannoni, can be found at
