Bay Area Teen Podcasters Honored in NPR Contest

To mark America’s 250th anniversary, NPR asked students across the country to produce short podcasts about their own unique experiences as citizens.

More than 700 entries from fourth graders, middle schoolers and high schoolers flooded in, each exploring themes around life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. A dedicated team from NPR then chose seven winners and 30 honorable mentions for the most outstanding podcasts — including one winner and six honorable mentions from Bay Area students.

You can learn more about the Bay Area podcasts below, and find links to their unique and often heartwarming episodes. Congratulations to all of these talented hosts!

In her 8-minute show, Carmel High School’s Violet Maxinoski explores The Journal of the title — one that her mother Sandi kept while serving in the Iraq war. The journal gives Maxinoski a greater appreciation of her own liberty. “[The] word appears again and again throughout my mother’s journal: choice. The freedom to move through the world without fear, war or the government choosing for you,” Maxinoski says. “The freedom to speak, to create, to disagree, to imagine another kind of future. These words ring especially true for me now as I prepare to leave behind the familiarity of my high school years and step into college.” Clearly, Maxinoski has a bright future ahead. (Teacher/Sponsor: Shelley Grahl)

Students Pareena Gupta and Vidushee Bala, of Amador Valley High School in Pleasanton, produced a frank and honest podcast about trash, recycling, and trying to be responsible young people in a chaotic urban environment. “That’s the thing about a competitive school full of competitive kids,” they note. “The pressure shows up in even the most seemingly trivial things, like throwing away your lunch.” (Teacher/Sponsor: Stacey Sklar.)

Josephine and Malcolm Barry-Kao from Lowell High in San Francisco explain the rules and history of flag football, and the reasons the game is growing in popularity for girls and teens. They note that there’s been a 63% increase in girls playing flag football since 2019, in part thanks to Title IX mandating that schools offer more sports options for girls. The Barry-Kaos describe flag football as a “uniquely American sport” and explain that, for them, the thrill of playing is stronger than enduring sexist ideas around the game. (Teacher/Sponsor: Jacqueline Moses)

Mountain View High student Lara Leon beautifully explores her Chinese/Hispanic heritage, feeling caught in the middle of two cultures and struggling to feel like she belongs fully to either. Leon weaves a deeply personal story of her hardworking grandfather’s journey around the world, and his fight to become a citizen of the United States, the one country that truly felt like home. As she figures out where she belongs, Leon’s reverence for her grandfather shines through. (Teacher/Sponsor: Tom Chang)

Naina Dhillon, a student at Khan Lab School in Palo Alto, is an adorable host. She opens her show by singing the national anthem, takes us along on a Calistoga hike and imagines herself “as a star on the star-spangled banner.” She talks to her classmates about life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness — and it’s all disarmingly lovely. (Teacher/Sponsor: Emily Lindsey)

Kelly Kurtzig of San Rafael’s Marin Academy interviews her grandmother — who just happens to be groundbreaking tech executive Sandra Kurtzig — about battling sexism in the 1970s and ’80s to become the first-ever woman to take a Silicon Valley company public. The senior Kurtzig proves to be inspirational. “Some of the investors who showed up to see my presentation showed up to see the freak show,” she explains to her granddaughter, “because they’d never seen a woman CEO before. Luckily there were more people who showed up to buy the stock than to see the freak show.” (Teacher/Sponsor: Caroline Harris)