Hadley Bodell
Editor in Chief
“Thank you! We love having The Bengal here!”
“Right over here, they fly out of this place.”
“I’ve never seen the person who puts this out, thank you for all you do!”
Statements I’ve heard from shop owners, baristas and random community members while distributing the newspaper on early Friday mornings.
“Hey! I read your article about housing at ISU, do you have any more information about applications?”
“I’m so happy The Bengal lives on and you guys still print a paper!”
“Thank you so much for your article on the Honors Program leadership, they don’t get enough recognition.”
Comments from readers of the newspaper.
“Hadley, I’m worried The Bengal will die with you.”
“It’s been my absolute pleasure working with you for the past three years.”
“You’ve revived the media at Idaho State University.”
Comments from coworkers, advisors and honorees of the university during my last semester here at ISU.
It’s through blurry eyes that I sit to type out “Editor in Chief” for the last time. It’s not about the undergraduate experience or the title to put on my resume, The Bengal resides at the root of the ISU and Pocatello communities, which I have been honored to be a part of for the last three years.
My journey at The Bengal actually begins when I was in high school. My older brother attended Idaho State three years before me. He knew I wanted to be a journalist and mentioned there was “some kind of newspaper” at the university, but that he “hadn’t seen any content or printed papers from it in years.”
“This could be your thing,” he said. “You could come here and revive it!”
That felt like a far-fetched dream. For me, 17 and terrified to move away from home, the thought of even securing a position at a collegiate-level paper seemed impossible. Was my writing good enough? Did I have what it took to approach random students for interviews?
I began at ISU as a Multiplatform Journalism major with a Professional Writing minor in the Fall of 2023. My freshman year roommate (and talented writer, website manager and distribution data collector Rachel Marwedel) told me she worked as a writer at The Bengal Newspaper. She told the Editor in Chief at the time about me, and one week later I had an interview for the position of Sports Editor.
I love all sports and was thrilled to attend games and write about the most exciting moments and score results. I spent my first two semesters going to nearly every campus event, chatting with international student athletes for features, and pushing my editor to let me write about my boyfriend at the time for his national recognition in robotics.
The staff at The Bengal was just five students when I arrived. I wrote multiple articles per week, in addition to my classload to help fill out the eight pages of the printed newspaper. I was determined to get our writing in print and back into the empty newsstands I saw all over campus.
In November 2023, the first printed edition since the COVID pandemic wiped out a newspaper that had previously been publishing consistently for more than 100 years prior was printed and distributed throughout our community. I vividly remember taking photos of the front page, where my robotics story resided and a small byline that read “Hadley Bodell, Sports Editor” underneath the title.
My first published work.
I actually did it. We did it.
The following summer, our Editor in Chief had graduated and I applied for the promotion.
The obsolete nature of The Bengal when I found it was extensive. The social medias hadn’t been posted on in years, our website functioned like it was 2003, and there were no internal processes for editing and publishing. The newspaper needed someone with a passion for journalism and the zest for reviving the news at ISU.
I suppose it helps that I’m a little particular about organization too.
My brain was swarming with ideas to improve everything. I mocked up merchandise like sweatshirts, sweatpants, professional polos, etc. for the team to wear. I wanted everyone on staff to have press passes to get behind scenes at stories and events. Mostly, I wanted to grow our staff so that we could print more than once a month and consistently update the website.
During my first year as Editor in Chief, I worked to find the balance between writing my own pieces for the paper and interviewing and hiring several new staff members. It was during this time that Rachel became our Website and Distribution Manager, a position perfectly suited to her talents. I also found Braxton Gregory, our now Sports Editor, through a professor on campus who recommended him. He has excelled in this position more than I ever did and has written some of our most popular pieces to date. I also hired Austen Hunzeker, now our News Editor, in the Starbucks on campus and suppressed my look of surprise when she walked up and was very much a girl, not a boy named Austen I was expecting to meet.
The first year was about making new processes for turning in pieces, editing them and getting them published. Some of the hardest times were during consistent turnovers for certain positions like Production Editor. For the majority of that year, Jodie Schwicht, who went on to work as a reporter at the Post Register in Idaho Falls, took the job, and then passed it off to her best friend Julia Miller. Now, I’m thrilled to have hired one of my best friends Kiana Blacker to create the layout of each print.
Rachel worked tirelessly to create a database where we could track paper distribution and revamped the entire website, switching its domain provider and giving it a fresh, modern look. Former Staff Writer and Life Editor Trystyn Miller used her social media skills to get our following back online. In the Spring of 2025, I was honored with a Benny Award for my work with the paper, and truly, life was good.
In the past eight months at The Bengal, my focus has shifted to documentation on how we did this. How did we take an extinct form of media at Idaho State and take it to printing 1,000 copies every two weeks?
I don’t have the space here to tell you exactly how.
But the staff knows. The advisor does, too.
In the Fall of 2025, our kind, supportive and helpful advisor and longtime journalist for the Idaho State Journal Shelbie Harris got a concerning diagnosis, brain cancer, and for the first time in years, our team was on our own. For months until his return in the spring, our team worked under my leadership alone. I am forever proud of how each writer stepped up and adapted to our new situation. We are thrilled Shelbie is back, healthy and happy with The Bengal.
These last two semesters have been about setting The Bengal up for success for when I’m gone. I feel incredibly connected to this form of journalism and specifically for our little family at the paper, and so do those continuing on staff after this semester. I’m committed in my final weeks here to making sure the paper never dies like it did again. I’ve been hiring younger students, creating a guide for future Editor in Chiefs, and constantly communicating with my superiors and advisors.
I feel so grateful to be this year’s Outstanding Student Achievement Award Winner for the College of Arts and Letters in the Fine Arts and Humanities Division. Once again, the university is recognizing me as the name behind the renewed success of the paper, but that’s not the whole truth. It’s all because of my team, my staff, my friends. I couldn’t do any of this without them and I feel forever indebted to them for making my dreams for the paper come true.
Now, the newsroom in the Student Union Building on campus sits lively with 12 staff members every Tuesday for meetings, Friday mornings filled with papers to distribute, and for quiet solo study sessions for anyone on staff.
I’m beyond thrilled to be leaving the paper in good hands with Madison Long, our current Life Editor. But truly, in seven days, I’m no longer Editor in Chief, she is.
The Bengal has built a long-lasting legacy and relationship with departments, students, administration and community members here. Madison and the rest of the underclassmen staff are not going anywhere, and neither is the paper.
I remember laughing nervously in the Fall of 2025 when my coworker made the comment about The Bengal “dying with me.” At the time, we hadn’t found Madison to take over the Editor role. I had all the faith in the team, but I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t nervous for what would happen without me.
The newsroom is a second home to me. These people are a found family to me. The readers in our community mean everything to me.
I am honored to have provided students with undergraduate journalism experience and allowed their work to be published. I have made lifelong friends through this job and have The Bengal to thank for my first job in journalism post-graduation. Now, I can confidently move to the next chapter of my life knowing this special publication will live on.
Thank you to all of our staff, our readers, our professors and advisors for your constant support and encouragement, and to my family for believing in me and crying bittersweet tears with me when we acknowledge this chapter has come to an end.
Signing off,
Hadley Bodell
Editor in Chief 2024-2026