Go-To Headline Writer in the Viator Voice Newsroom Crowned State Champion

There’s a knack to writing clever headlines. Just ask Grace Kelly ’23, who relies on clever word play, alliteration and even a double entendre now and then to write catchy headlines. Suffice it to say she knows the value of word association. After all, her name is synonymous with the famous actress by the same name who became the Princess of Monaco. 

 

On Friday, all of her creativity came together, when Grace was crowned state champion in headline writing at the IHSA state finals in journalism. In fact, she was the only student from a private school to place in the top six of any category at state this year.

 

“I couldn’t believe it when they announced my name,” Grace said. “I had no idea I would get that far.”

Grace has worked on Viator Voice all four years and this year served as editor of the Arts & Entertainment section. Headline writing is fun, she says, but she goes about her craft deliberately.

 

“First and foremost, I want people to know what the story is about,” she says, “and I want them to be interested in it.”

 

For the state competition, students were assigned to craft headlines for six stories running on the front page of a high school newspaper. They were given a snapshot of the layout, showing where each story would appear on the page, and a character count for each headline, that included a limit on the number of letters and spaces.

 

Students had to read each story and write a standout headline, all in 90 minutes. Grace still remembers the first headline she wrote, for a story examining a ban on Tik Tok across the country: U.S. “Tok-s” of Media Ban Plan. Another was for the announcement of this year’s prom theme: Committee “Prom-ises” Magical Night.

 

“I like to think outside the box when it comes to word play,” Grace says. “The hardest part is when you come up with a great headline but you’re over the character limit by one letter.”

 

Compact headline writing is part of grabbing the reader right from the start -- and drawing them into the story – which is something Mr. Chris Paolelli has preached to his newspaper staff all year.

 

“We had a small editorial staff this year with lots of first-time editors, so everyone had to work extra-hard to put out a quality paper, and they certainly have,” Mr. Paolelli says. “One part of the job was comparatively easy this year, though, and that was headlines, because we had Grace Kelly."  

 

“She was like a headline prophet,” he adds. “Other editors would come to her for an idea, she'd close her eyes or look into the distance for a second, and then come back with something stunning.”

 

Mr. Paolelli says he saw Grace’s knack for writing clever headlines during the first layout session of the year. 

 

“I saw her skills in action, and I told her the IHSA headline event in April was all hers,” he describes. “I didn't know how right I was! She absolutely nailed it.”

 

This fall, Grace heads to the University of Illinois in Champaign, where she intends to major in biology, with the hopes of one day advancing accessibility in health care. She hasn’t ruled out writing for the Daily Illini, but she wants to see how much time her course load will take first.

 

Either way, Grace says, she loves words and she loves to write, and she will always value her time collaborating in the newsroom. After all, her father, Greg Kelly, is an assignment editor for CBS 2 Chicago.