[headline size="medium"]Darrell Hughes[/headline]
As a sophomore at Cody High School, Darrell Hughes was interested in engineering. That led him to a high school internship at Ford in a science, architecture and math program. One day a supervisor asked him to email information to engineers.
“The supervisor said, ‘That was a really good, detailed email. You should be a journalist.’ And I thought, hmph, maybe that’s a hint.” Hughes said.
So Hughes started to pursue another path. He joined the staff of the Cody Times, one of the participating schools in the Michigan State/Detroit Free Press High School Journalism Program.
CMA Communicator adviser Robbyn Williams was adviser at Cody when Hughes joined the staff. She began mentoring him when he was in tenth grade, and by 12th grade he was editor-in-chief of the yearbook and he led the student publications department.
“He was a serious writer, well-organized and tenacious,” Williams said.
Hughes said the class set-up made him feel comfortable, as if he were in a real press office. He remembers students having the freedom to decide what to publish.
“Dr. Williams always had the final say, of course, but it was a cool environment because it felt like we were working when we were there,” Hughes said.
Hughes won the High School Journalism Program’s $24,000 Ford Scholarship in 2003 and used it to attend Michigan State University. After graduating, he took a job at the Dow Jones Newswires and the Wall Street Journal in 2009. That job provided him with his favorite moment in journalism: He found a group of people in front of the White House, listening to an AM-FM radio broadcast of Obama's inauguration.
“That scene became the lede for my story covering Obama's inauguration for the wire service. The moment was awesome because, during this time in Washington D.C., cell phone service was jammed and wireless hotspots were useless,” Hughes said. “It was just really interesting to experience that scene.”
Hughes left journalism in December 2010 and now works for SIFMA SmartBrief, SIFMA SmartBrief: Operations and Technology Edition, and SIFMA’s Newsletter Suite.
“I work as lead editor and I am responsible for content review, recommendations, and approval,” Hughes said.
Hughes called journalism a field for creative minds and fact-finders.
“Journalism took me a long way in life,” Hughes said.
By De’Ante Clark and DeVaughn Humphries, Cody Staff Writers
