Ms. Adrienne Mantegna is currently the Head of Williston’s English Department, the faculty advisor to The Willistonian, and a teacher of both English and the school’s journalism course. Unfortunately, Ms. Mantegna will be leaving Williston at the end of this academic year to teach at a school in Florida near where her husband recently got a job.

Ms. Mantegna was born in Springfield, Mass., and she has lived in the area for almost her entire life. She went to middle school at Hampshire Regional and was then given the opportunity to attend Williston on an academic scholarship as a day student. At Williston, she ran cross-country for two years under Coach Greg Tuleja and graduated as a member of the class of 1994.

Mr. Tuleja, Academic Dean and Girls Cross Country Coach says, “I coached [Ms. Mantegna] when she was a junior and a senior when she was Adrienne Stolarz. She was pretty impressive as a student, she was a wonderful person, very hard working. I knew her mainly through cross country.”

Ms. Mantegna says, “[Coming to Williston] was life changing. I know I would not be the person that I am today if I hadn’t had the opportunity to come here.”

After leaving Williston, Ms. Mantegna attended the University of Arizona for a semester before transferring to the University of Massachusetts where she earned a bachelor’s degree in English.

During her senior year at UMass, Ms. Mantegna got an internship at Disney Publishing which published four magazines out of Northampton. After graduating, she worked for two years at Disney Publishing as a freelancer. She was then offered a full time position and from there she worked her way up to Senior Associate Editor—she remained in the position for just about a decade.

Ms. Mantegna recalls about her time with Disney Publishing, “I remember going to do a writers conference and I was part of a panel for part of it but then I also made this presentation on how to pitch magazines. There were probably  60 people in the room. I did this whole presentation, then I did a Q & A, and I realized: Oh my gosh this is what I want to do, this is so gratifying, helping people teaching them to do something. I just had this revelation.”

After the conference, she decided what she wanted. She recalls thinking, “This is what I want to do, I want to teach.”

She then decided she needed a higher degree, so she went back to school. After two years, she graduated with her Masters in Fine Arts with a specific concentration in creative nonfiction writing from Vermont College of Fine Arts while working full time with Disney Publishing.

She then started applying for teaching jobs. She taught at a local Bay Path University for a while before deciding she wanted a full time job, heavily considering applying to private high schools. At first, Williston didn’t even cross her mind, but soon enough she found herself applying for a job back at her Alma Mater.

She notes, “I never for whatever reason thought of Williston. I really enjoyed teaching college level. It was so gratifying, but I had this feeling like I wanted to try high school. So, I applied here [to Williston]. I got the job, and the rest is happy history.”

A year later, Ms. Mantegna arrived at Williston, starting off as a 9^th grade English teacher and advisor.

Mr. Tuleja notes, “When she came back here to teach, it was clear to us that she was the same wonderful person that we knew when she was a student.”

Five years ago, she then took over the job as faculty advisor of The Willistonian. At the time, it was just an after school club producing a newspaper that was hanging on for dear life—only one or two print editions  were produced each year.

Ms. Mantegna says, “This is my fifth year with the newspaper. It was a club and it was a faltering publication. It was more like a newsletter.”

During the first year as faculty advisor, Ms. Mantegna just continued with what had been happening with the newspaper when it was passed on to her. During the second year, she realized that it was not working at all.

She recalls thinking, “This is not a newspaper. The participation was so low because there was no time for clubs to meet, so that is when I proposed a journalism class that would run the newspaper and that would give me the opportunity to gain the student engagement to really make it into a newspaper.”

She then conducted some research, changed print companies and figured out how the class would run.

The journalism class has now been around for the last three years. It evolves each year to improve as a class and to better serve the needs of the students and the newspaper.

The dynamic of the class has evolved greatly over the years and has become quite a popular elective. For the last three trimesters, there have been at least 16 students in the class.

Ms. Mantegna, through the creation of this course, was able to breathe life back into The Willistonian, which is printed now trimester-ly in addition to its online presence, www.willistonian.org, which is updated consistently.

The Willistonian now also has an Instagram, Facebook account, and a Twitter page, all of which are run by students and overseen by Ms. Mantegna.

She looks back on how far the course has come and she says, “It was a big shift that happened. I think it has been successful. I mean, there are always things that I want to change, but I think that any conscientious teacher is never satisfied with what he or she does, and there is always room for improvement.”

She continues, “The writing that you do in this class is so much more applicable to the writing that you are going to do in your life. The communication skills that we practice are those you can take with you into the real world.”

Mr. Tuleja notes, “[Ms. Mantegna’s leaving] is a huge loss for us. She is a very good teacher and was quite helpful to me as a colleague in the department. She is beloved by the students and just very smart, interested in literature, interested in language and has been a great, great asset to the school.”

Nate Gordon ’16 is currently the Editor-in-Chief of the newspaper. He says, “I have been working for the newspaper for five years and having the opportunity to work with a teacher as dedicated as Ms. Mantegna has been the greatest aspect of my Williston experience. She taught me the importance of student journalism and the influence one can have on a community through writing.”