Writing
Aaron Crider 2015
Employer
Hartford High School
1. Tell us about your journey since graduation.
I landed my first "writing" gig almost immediately
after graduating in April 2015. I went to work at The Herald-Palladium
in St. Joseph, MI as a copy editor and what the news industry calls
"paginator." That is a fancy term for a graphic designer who
designs news pages. About a month into that job I moved over from the
news side to the sports desk to edit and design sports sections before
eventually becoming a sports writer for the paper. I was there until
the summer of 2019. My mom passed away the year before and the late
nights and being away from my wife and young children took a toll on
me. Luckily, I had made some strong contacts while working with the
HP, and a former colleague told me that Gatehouse, now known as
Gannett, was looking for paginators and copyeditors. While I was
looking for something different and with better hours, I wasn't too
thrilled with the idea of going back to copyediting. However, the
biggest perk to the job was that it was remote before remote jobs were
popular. So, I applied and within a week of the interview had a job
offer. It was good timing too. The COVID-19 pandemic hit the United
States about two months after I took the job and everything shut down.
Covering sports came to a grinding halt, and I believe that if I had
stayed at the HP I would have found myself in the unemployment office
after a while. I worked for Gannett for nearly five years. I was
constantly looking to either move up into a management position or get
back to writing. To improve my chances of a promotion, I enrolled in
Ball State university's Masters of Arts in Journalism program, mainly
for its literary journalism classes which reminded me very much of the
creative nonfiction workshops I took at Grand Valley. But despite my
best efforts and going back to school, I kept coming up short and I
felt like I wasn't being valued by the company. I decided to set
myself a deadline. If I couldn't get a promotion or something better
within Gannett by the end of September 2023, then I was going to find
a different job. That deadline came and went, and I broke the news to
my wife. Immediately she texted me a job posting for our local middle
school for what they called a "bilingual success coach",
which is a person who--in this case is bilingual in English and
Spanish--works with students in the migrant or ESL program. I
submitted my application that same day. I learned Spanish while
serving a mission for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints
after I graduated high school and I wanted to knock some of the rust
off and this seemed like the perfect opportunity. I was hired by the
second week of October, and it was best career move I've made since
graduating Grand Valley. I worked at the middle school for four
months. When I got back from our Christmas break, the curriculum
director, who also oversees the ESL program, asked if I would be
interested in teaching Spanish for the rest of the year at the high
school. I talked it over with my family, especially my twins who were
attending the middle school at that time, and unanimously everyone
thought I should take the job. From January 2024 through June of the
same year, I taught Spanish 1. I flew by the seat of my pants if you
will, and had a blast. In April of 2024, I applied for and received
the Grow Your Own Grant, a scholarship that creates pathways for
people who what to make a career change into teaching but do not have
an education degree or background. The money paid for me to enroll
into the Training Educators And Creating Hope (#TEACH) program. Since
that inaugural semester, I have finished my Masters degree, completed
all the requisite courses for #TEACH, and I have been teaching at
Hartford High School, about 16 miles from where I live in South Haven.
I teach Spanish 1 & 2, and, I am currently leading the school's
first-ever journalism class this 2025-26 academic year. I am also
teaching ESL classes twice a week for the Van Buren Intermediate
School District. I plan to go back to school for second Masters degree
at Michigan State in January 2026. I plan to complete the Masters in
Foreign Language Teaching. In a few years time, I may even return to
the classroom as a student for the final time in the pursuit of a
doctorate degree in Education. It has been a twisty road since
graduating from Grand Valley. I never thought I would be back to
school in this sense, but I am loving every minute of being a teacher.
2. Share a favorite Grand Valley memory.
I have two. I loved being part of the Grand Valley Journal of
History editorial board, and I loved being one of the co-directors of
the Student Reading Series. As one of the History Journal editors, I
learned a lot about the submissions process, what editors looks for
when considering an article for the publication, and how collaborative
work functions to run something like the journal. It was great
training for becoming a news journalist. The Student Reading Series
was a blast because I had was in charge of designing the promotional
material. My two favorite poster I made were for our Valentine's Day
reading in 2015. That particular event fell on a Friday the 13th, so I
designed a poster that had Cupid laying face down on the ground with
an arrow in his bag with and image of Jason Vorhees from the Friday
the 13th series. It was great! The other poster I was proud of was for
a special reading for students who placed in the annual Association of
Writers & Poets contest (AWP). I t was a simple design that had a
stool sitting center stage with a microphone and spotlight shining. To
me it set the tone for the whole reading, signifying that these were
stories worth hearing.
3. What's the best piece of advice you've ever received?
The best advice I ever received was from my dad. He told me that
you find to find something you are passionate about and can see
yourself doing for years. If you can find that, then the money will
come. I used to think it was writing, specifically being a novelist,
that would be the thing to bring me the money and happiness. But in
the last few years I've come to learn that writing and teaching are
what make me happy. And yes, the money has come along.
4. List three words you would use to describe your Grand
Valley experience.
Excellent, Creative, Full of opportunity (I know the last one is
a phrase, but it is true!)
5. What difference would you like to make in the world?
I am already making the difference. Teaching is so, so much more
than instructing or imparting some academic knowledge about a subject
to teenagers. It is about mentoring them, listening to them, guiding
them through tough times. It is about allowing yourself to be young
and make mistakes, but also to be wise and lead with confidence, even
when you don't feel very confident. I hope to continue to do that for
years to come.
November 2025
Interest Area(s)
Writing, English, History
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