Are you ever so excited to tell your friends a story that you kind of jumble the whole thing up? Like, the substance is there, but if the delivery is off, it just doesn't land well. The same thing goes for podcasting. Even if we can hear in your voice that you're excited about something, if there's no structure or narrative to the piece, it can be hard to hook an audience.
I'm Sequoia Carrillo, and this is The Student's Podcast, NPR's podcast all about making a podcast. Today, we're bringing you an episode from last season, where Alyssa Nadewerny and I talked to some of our high school finalists, who made... to tell their story really well. We live in St. Helena, California, smack dab in the center of the Napa Valley.
Despite the drunk tourists, the wineries, and the huge castle located just 15 minutes north of us, we all lead relatively normal small-town lives. Today we're focusing on the students who brought us Popo the Clown. Meet Reed Ivanoff. Josie Goldfarb, Sonia Haig, Amelie Parr, Will Pachter, and Olivia Anderson.
Their podcast was one of our 15 high school finalists last year. They're now seniors at St. Helena High School in Northern California, but their story starts way back in elementary school. This is our home. This is where we were raised, along with most of our classmates at St. Helena High School. Because of our small community, we've all been like family since we were toddlers. As juniors, we're realizing that we're leaving our home pretty soon and we're waving goodbye to our little family.
Some of us started reflecting on old times. For all of us, one distinct memory stood out. This memory belonged to the Big Dipper, a local ice cream parlor long gone now. The walls were a mural of our local faces. There were hundreds of taped up photos of our little kid selves off the wall for maybe a little too much sugar. If you looked a little deeper at the photos, you could notice something else. Most of our faces were painted intricately and beautifully.
Some kids were tigers, others were fairy princesses. This face painting brought on a mystery that we're all eager to solve. We all remember the lady who painted our faces as Popo the Clown. Recently, we realized something. Popo's gone. She disappeared. She hasn't been anywhere around town in several years. A local staple has vanished. Where did she go? It was up to us to find out.
When I listen to this podcast, one thing that really stands out to me is the narrative. Their podcast sounds like the intro to a film or a mystery novel, and it just makes me want to keep listening. There was something drawing us to this mystery. Maybe it was closure, or maybe we wanted to have a little fun and act like detectives. But either way, Popo brought us closer together. We can't thank her enough for that.
Our search started on Facebook. We all did some intensive searching for keywords like popo and napa until we finally found two things. First, we found the old Big Dipper Facebook page. Most of the photos from the old wall were uploaded to the account. We quickly sliced through until we found ourselves and even old friends who had already graduated. We were quick to text them and reconnect, teasing about how different they looked. Secondly, and more importantly, we found Popo.
Surprisingly quickly. Either we were geniuses or she wasn't much of a mystery to begin with. Either way, we were crazy excited. We had found her. A warm, fuzzy feeling, something like a movie cliche, sparked in our hearts. We were quick to contact her, and she was quick to respond. We found that she wasn't able to come to St. Lena anymore. This could be contributed to many things, like the change in the local government administration and the closing of the Big Dipper.
After we talked for a little bit, she agreed to an interview, and we met her at the park in Sonoma about an hour away from us. Our conversation with her would prove to be one of the most eye-opening experiences of our lives. I was going to college, and I just hated everything. I hated my life. I hated the war, because it was all during the Vietnam War. I hated everything. And I didn't know what to do with myself. I hope you guys never get into that place in life. But you may.
you know i don't want to be a lawyer like mama say i don't want to go into the medical field i don't want to be an architect i don't want to be anything that my parents hoped i would be Their story follows a very traditional structure, so it's easy to follow along. The introduction, which you heard first, then rising action, that's where they were searching for Popo.
And it all builds up to that climax where they meet and interview this lost person from their childhood, the object of their quest. And finally, of course, the conclusion. In doing what she loved the most, Popo changed the world for the better. She brings smiles to so many kids' faces, makes so many days, and inspires so many young people, including us. We sit on the brink of a new era in our lives. We're scared and confused. Who knew that our guiding hand would be an old childhood entertainer?
We didn't know how to thank her or how to properly personify this transition into adulthood. And then it came to us. We called Popo and invited her to come back to St. Helena. We couldn't wait for her to come and reconnect and paint our faces one last time. This podcast was one of our favorites from the thousands of student podcasts we got last year. So when I finally sat down to interview Reed, Sonia, Olivia, Josie, Amelie, and Will, I wanted to hear all about how they made it.
One big thing they told me? The whole thing didn't really turn out like they thought it would. At first we were writing this kind of funny comedic piece. Like we wanted it to be a mystery at first. Like what happened to Popo the Clown? And then we finally got to interview Popo and that changed. She really, her words allowed us to shape the message that we wanted to give to the world.
The students told me it ended up being this coming-of-age story about childhood and their changing hometown. The world is constantly moving and altering and shifting around us. As high school kids were told to make sense of this whirlwind and find a way through it. Bubble told us her story, and in doing so, taught us that the easiest way to make sense of the world around us is to make our own path. Do what has meaning to you.
And even though the final product came out very clean and polished, it definitely did not start like that. Olivia told me that when they first got the assignment to make a podcast, they had no idea what they were doing. In terms of actual preparation though, we had none. Our English teacher just kind of threw this at us and was like...
You guys gotta figure this out somehow. And we were like, okay. First off, there were the technical things. They were lucky enough to get a computer with iMovie on it and two microphones from the school. But then they had to divide up the work. Josie and Reed wrote the script. Amelie played the music. Sonia found Popo. Olivia interviewed her. Then Will cut down the interview in iMovie. The interview with Popo is actually probably about an hour long.
And so our podcast is only nine minutes, and about half of that is Josie and Reed and Amelie narrating. Josie, Reed, and Amelie sat in a circle in the back hallway of their school to narrate the podcast. Amelie says it took a while. We had to take, oh my God, almost over like 30 takes, I would say, of each sentence because every time either we'd make each other laugh or we were just...
too deep into the context that we would forget that we're supposed to make it run smoothly. And it was a mess at first, but it turned out beautifully. This, remember, was all before the COVID shutdown. So I asked them if they thought that they could have made their podcast in their current reality. Masks, social distancing, the whole deal. And they said, yeah, probably.
Our generation is pretty resourceful when it comes to technology. And I agree with them. After all, they found Popo on Facebook and they interviewed her outside in a park. They divided up the tasks so that they didn't all have to sit around a computer at once. Their normal recording technique, sitting in a circle and making each other laugh, that might have to move to Zoom. But overall, it could be done.
Just shoot your shot. You never know. I mean, and even then you're making it for yourself. Share it with somebody, you know, share, share an experience that you have put it out in the world. Well, that's their story and that's our show. We'll be back next week with another episode. Make sure to follow us on Twitter at NPR underscore ed and subscribe to our newsletter to stay up to date on this year's student podcast challenge.
Remember, our college competition opens on December 1st, and the high school and middle school competition on January 1st. Today's episode was produced by Sequoia Carrillo and edited by Steve Drummond. Our intern is Marco Truvino, and our music... is produced by Sam D'Augustino. I'm Alyssa Nadwarni. And I'm Sequoia Carrillo. Thanks for listening to our show, and we can't wait to listen to yours.