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By Claire Reinthaler
For the Clemmons Courier

My name is Claire Reinthaler and I’m excited to be the Titan Tattler for the Clemmons Courier this year! I’m going to be a junior at West Forsyth, and it will be my second year on the staff of the Zephyr, the school newspaper. I’m thrilled to be taking on the position of features editor this year, and I can’t wait to see what the next two semesters of high school will bring me.

I was born in Hoboken, New Jersey, and lived most of my childhood in Bergen County, 30 to 40 minutes away from New York City. Starting at age 4, my parents enrolled me at a private Montessori school, and I attribute all of my academic success to my years in that alternate education system. We lived in a town with great public schools, and my parents originally thought that they would put my sister and me in a Montessori school for preschool and then move us to the public schools when I was in first grade and my sister was in kindergarten. Each year, however, they decided to let us stay because of the strong values that Montessori education instilled in us. I attended that school all the way through eighth grade, and I’m forever grateful for what those 10 years provided me with: academic, social and emotional skills that I’ve carried with me into high school.
The pandemic hit in the middle of my eighth-grade year, and during those first few months of quarantine, my family made the tough decision to leave the area my sister and I grew up in and move to Clemmons, where I started my freshman year virtually at West two weeks into the school year. I completed my entire first year of high school online in June of 2021, and then went back fully in-person for my sophomore year, where I made a bunch of great friends.
I’ve gotten involved in quite a few great programs and extracurriculars over the past few years, all of which I intend to continue for the rest of my high school career. I started taking Latin last year which I thoroughly enjoy and participated in the Junior Classical League (JCL) at West as well. I’ve taken chorus since third grade and have continued my passion at West for the past two years. I auditioned for and made West’s Concert Choir at the end of the last school year and am excited to start that class this year.
Of course, there’s also journalism, a passion which was really fostered in seventh and eighth grade. My school in New Jersey had a broadcast journalism program for the middle schoolers, and that was where I learned all my basic journalistic techniques, such as style rules, how to conduct a proper interview and how to find accurate and reliable sources when researching. I remember being so excited when I saw that West had a journalism program, and I knew it was something I would have to participate in.
I love to read, draw and make videos for my YouTube channel, but my main passion outside of school is horseback riding, which I’ve now done for nine years. Along with nonfiction journalistic writing, I also love writing fiction as well, and just recently completed writing a 130,000-word fantasy novel with my best friend.
I’m excited about the opportunity to write for the Courier this year, and I hope to be able to provide readers with the most up-to-date and important information about the Titan community.