One day you will see senior Michelle Baik’s name in lights, but before she accumulates her fame and fortune, we must remember her humble beginnings. 

Baik is a simple woman committed to her community, and she has generously involved herself in many aspects of it. When asked where she has chosen to allocate her precious time while in high school, Baik stated, “Tennis. I’m also president of Spanish club, sorry, co-presidente lo siento Alaya, y yo soy co-vice presidente del club de Korean.” 

Humbly, Baik also admits that, “I won a state champ[ionship].” 

Baik also makes it clear that she is in Division I. She warns that all should be careful of people saying they’ve won state championships. Baik is not easily scammed by falsities, as seen with those trying to deceive her with their Division II and III titles. This is exactly why she is The Chariot’s Business Editor. 

Baik possesses further talents that allow her to excel at her second position as a Public Relations Editor. Baik is so incredible at her Public Relations position, which includes posting lots of TikToks. She explains her proficiency: “I would be a great influencer. I would never get canceled. For sure, I would be there forever. People would be like, ‘Who is an influencer who is perfect?’ and you would think of me.”

While Baik’s high school experience has been modest, she has big plans for the future. She will be attending the University of Michigan, where she plans to study business. From there, she plans to make loads of money and invest in lip fillers. 

 Baik’s final message to Troy High School before she moves on to her lucrative future is this: “To all my haters, watch your backs. I will get you one day, and when you see me again, I’m going to be rich and gorgeous and you are going to be jealous.”

Senior Ainsley Giorio never planned on being a runner. Yet, four years later, she’s made the most out of an unexpected opportunity and has since been a scholar athlete and was the Captain of the Troy Colts Cross Country team this past fall.

“I cannot begin to describe how grateful I was for the opportunity. I felt as if this was truly my chance to help continue a great legacy of all the wonderful girls who have come before me,” she says. “On top of that, this team has done so much for me and has allowed me to meet some of my best friends. It truly has pushed me to do things that, at the beginning of high school, I could have never imagined.”

Giorio shares her most cherished memories throughout these uncertain four years: “My most memorable moment in high school was cross country camp, specifically my senior year. It seriously broke me, like I literally couldn’t run after, but it was also the greatest experience ever.” She continues, “Running all day sounds terrible, but you are doing it with your favorite people.”

Along with an unplanned running career came much more for Giorio. She explains that the best things that happened to her in high school was when she pushed past her comfort zone. One of these was the Troy Theatre Ensemble.

“One of the best things that I think I ever chose to be involved in was hair and makeup for [the Troy Theatre Ensemble].” She says. “I met two of my closest friends there and I will forever be grateful for them.”

Amid the running and theatre productions, she had another passion: physics. Giorio plans on attending Oakland University next fall possibly going into engineering. As the end of her time at Troy High School approaches, she gives advice to the underclassmen. 

“There is so much opportunity here: make sure to capture it. Even if things are out of your comfort zone, I implore you to try them. This is the time to discover yourself and these opportunities may never come again.” 

Giorio emphasizes, “If not now, then when? High school is too short not to enjoy it. Take as many opportunities as you can and learn and grow from them as much as you can.”

Ashley Park, senior third-year Body Copy Editor for The Chariot, didn’t even want to join the class originally. However, she says, “I think it’s one of the best choices that my parents have made for me.” 

Last year, Ashley was awarded third place for the Diversity Coverage for the Michigan Interscholastic Press Association Awards for her work with the newspaper. She explains that it felt good to have her work recognized and validated. 

Through The Chariot, Ashley’s grown as a writer and reporter, but especially as a communicator. “I think the biggest thing I’ve learned is working with other people,” she explains. “Regardless of whether or not we have similar values, work ethic or working styles, it doesn’t mean that they’re wrong, it just means we’re different. Now that I’ve accepted this, it’s been so much easier to work with others and have fun.”

Her teamwork isn’t confined to The Chariot, though. Ashley loves volunteering and even started her own string quartet that performs for the residents at Brookdale Senior Living. “We’re not the best musicians ever, yet there were people shedding tears when we peered over our music stands.” She shares that some of the residents used to be violinists themselves and would personally thank the quartet for performing and bringing them back to memorable times in their lives. 

Ashley’s consistently won the President’s Volunteer Service Award since middle school. She doesn’t place much value on awards like this, though. Rather, the experiences hold much greater value to her. “It’s nice receiving recognition for it, but it’s more than that. There are so many things you can learn from working with others or even simply talking to them.” 

When the work’s done, Ashley likes to turn down the lights and curl up with a movie and her latest crochet project, “Of course, all the while I’m munching on snacks.” She especially loves mint chocolate chip ice cream. 

Her advice for future reporters with The Chariot is, “There will always be people around you who will be willing to help you out, so don’t be afraid to ask.” More generally, she says that “it is what it is,” and “nothing is that big of a deal.” She encourages future Troy High School students to spend “more time in the ‘now’” and “let life take you wherever you need to be.”

As one of the Body Copy Editors for The Chariot, Grace Haugk holds the pulse of the newspaper in their hands. They plan on majoring in English Writing at the University of Pittsburgh where they’ll undoubtedly find themselves in the theater department. 

Outside of school productions, the actor finds themselves in shows as part of the Ridgedale Players in Troy. With the Troy Theatre Ensemble, Haugk played their first major lead role in “Little Women” as Jo March, a character they connected to instantly.

“I felt very represented by her and to be able to bring that story to life on stage was healing.” They continued, “But also kind of painful to be like, oh, this is something someone’s going through that I’ve also gone through and now I have to portray it as if it’s not me.”

They’ve also performed in many other shows, including “Footloose,”“Grease,” “Mamma Mia” and a play produced by their theatre class in eighth grade. 

“Twice As Murdered” was Haugk’s pitch and the performance of a lifetime for a certain group of Smith Middle School students. What started out as a seventh grade short story quickly became the tale of an abandoned British girl stranded in a mansion during a snowstorm in the midst of a murder. They thank Eden Wilson specifically for making the play funny when Haugk didn’t know how.

Seeing the play come to life, as well as playing the leading role, helped Haugk understand the story they’d been writing. “It was really cool to see characters that I’d only thought of in my head come to life and to be one of them. I never thought of myself as this character, never thought I could be like this character.” 

The only experience that comes close to having their piece performed on stage would be when Creative Writing teacher Joseph Verhelle used one of Haugk’s poems as part of his class’s curriculum. They look forward to the flurry of texts after that lesson every semester once their peers have read the poem.

However, as an aspiring author, Haugk claims that the praise is nice, but ultimately, “I want to write characters so other people can have their own Jo March.”

Senior Ria “Reza” Gupta made her way up the newspaper ladder beginning as a Business Editor, then a Body Copy Editor, and finally the Editor-in-Chief for The Chariot. Her hard-working and responsible disposition could be thanks to her being a wolf, if she was any animal. In fact, Gupta believes that she would be an “alpha wolf.”

Throughout her time at Troy High School, Gupta has kept herself busy with a variety of activities and memories being the president of Writers’ League, a member of the Troy High Girls Swim team for four years and the Troy High Synchronized Swimming team for two years. As much as Gupta seems like the perfect model student, don’t fret. She’s had her fair share of embarrassing moments as well. One time, her ex-partner performed an ‘I want you back’ poem at the poetry slam that her club hosted in front of forty people. Yikes. 

Back to newspaper, Gupta said that her favorite part of the class is “sitting down with the class and just talking about our interviews and news, especially when we find out cool things.” 

She would also like to thank newspaper adviser Morgan Clark for “having faith in me after my catastrophe of a freshman year and letting me do what I like to do in this class.”

Reza would like to continue to be a journalist as she plans to study journalism with a minor in history “at some college” and maybe get an MBA. Then, she plans to work for a Condé Nast publication and work her way up the corporate ladder. 

As her final message before she heads off, she says, “I wish I had more time to do the things I wanted to do.” 

But, as a more important final message, she says, “To all my haters, you won.”