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Sunday, November 4, 2001
Scholar uses his writing as a way to open up
The Miller senior hopes to one day work for a politically conservative publication
By Tim Eaton
Caller-Times

David Adame/Caller-Times

Emilio Gonzalez, Miller High School senior and South Texas Distinguished Scholar in communications, is the editor-in-chief of his school's newspaper. The scholar enjoys teaching new members of the paper's staff and if he continues in journalism, hopes to write for a conservative publication.

   Dressed in the understated James Dean-style of white T-shirt and jeans, the editor of Miller High School's newspaper calls himself conservative and reserved.
   Emilio Gonzalez is a Caller-Times/Channel 6 South Texas Distinguished Scholar in the category of communications. He carries an 87.6 percent overall grade average. It's 93 percent when honors and advanced placement classes are factored. His advanced classes include an English course, a government class and newspaper instruction.
   "I'm usually really quiet, but when I write, that's when my views and everything come out," said Emilio, an 18-year-old senior.
   When he rose to the editor-in-chief position at the Roy Miller Buccaneer, Emilio combined three of his strengths. He got to write, editorialize and create a product that he says helps people.
   Emilio said that he enjoys teaching the new staff members about the practical exercises of good journalism, which earned him a first-place award in editorial writing at a regional competition last year.
   "Emilio was the only person on staff with the writing and editing skills and the motivation that was needed to become the paper's editor," Jane Wall, Emilio's journalism teacher, said in a letter.
   Interests in politics and journalism likely will follow Emilio into a career as a journalist in the real world, maybe in New York.
   "If I go into journalism, I'd like to be big like that," he said.
   He said he hopes one day to spend his days "writing for a paper or for TV news. I want to get involved in political stuff. I'd like to be a columnist for a conservative publication."
   Emilio said in a soft-spoken voice that he prefers behind-the-scenes work and could also imagine himself as a writer for Rupert Murdoch's Fox News.
   He said that he does not watch television too often, adding that the hours he spends on the school paper would make it difficult.
   But when he has free time, he often tunes into Murdoch's news channel that he stumbled upon in a remote-clicking period of MSNBC-induced frustration. He called Fox News a "godsend."
   Emilio credited his conservatism partly to his religious upbringing.
   "I was raised Catholic, and I'd say that I have a strong faith," he said. "But I think of God as sort of a buddy. I think of him as one of the guys."
   Emilio's parents, Joeand Elizabeth, offered their son some moderate religious guidance. But Joe Gonzalez said that they never had to push their son to excel in school or at the paper.
   "He does things on his own," the elder Gonzalez said of his son. "He motivates himself."


Contact Tim Eaton at 886-3794_or eatont@caller.com

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