Deer Park senior Sahvana Morri aims to be a journalist

Watching the world around her in the last two years convinced Deer Park High School senior Sahvana Morri that she wants to become a journalist.

“There’s a lot of disinformation and misinformation out there,” she said. “It’s coming from both sides, and I want to be a part of fixing that.”

She always knew she wanted to do something related to English and language arts, but her plans for her future solidified last year. She took a journalism class this year and is the yearbook editor.

Morri said she would prefer print journalism over broadcast journalism. “I feel like I’m stronger in written words rather than speaking,” she said.

She’s more comfortable with her decision after talking with her journalism teacher and meeting some journalists. Morri said she worried that she was too introverted to be a good journalist, but now realizes it doesn’t matter.

“It wasn’t as inaccessible as I thought it might be,” she said.

Morri wants to be a political journalist, digging up information people need to know before they cast their votes.

“I think it’s me being more aware that not everyone has information that they need,” she said.

Morri is the youngest in a family of three sisters. She grew up in Priest River, and has lived in the Deer Park area for the past five years. She has been taking College in the Classroom courses at DPHS, earning college credits for classes in English, history and political science.

“I think it’s a good opportunity,” she said. “They’re more challenging classes, and I can focus better.”

Morri said she took that route rather than Running Start partly because she doesn’t drive and couldn’t get into Spokane for classes every day. But she also wanted to savor her high school experience.

“I didn’t want to give up the last two years of my high school,” she said. “High school is once in a lifetime. I like the environment. I like the people here.”

School counselor Glenn Poland said Morri is a leader in the classroom. “She works at the office,” he said. “She’s a great kid.”

Poland knows about her plans to become a journalist. “She is a person who seeks the truth,” he said.

She has been involved in Link Crew, which helps freshmen and new students acclimate to the school, and is a member of the National Honor Society. Last month she was named a Spokane Scholar in social studies, one of only a handful of students to achieve that designation.

Morri plans to study journalism at Washington State University in the fall.

She has a 4.0 cumulative GPA and has been named one of Deer Park’s three valedictorians. All three have the same GPA, but Morri was given the option of giving a speech at graduation because her higher SAT scores broke the tie.

But, instead, Morri invited her two fellow valedictorians to share the speech with her. “They worked just as hard as I did,” she said.