EllieAna Hale is joining the Northeast News team this summer as an intern, bringing with her years of reporting experience.

Hale is double majoring in political science and communications with an emphasis in journalism at the University of Missouri – Kansas City, but that wasn’t always the plan.

“I actually was on the medical path up until my second semester of my senior year,” Hale said. “I was about to get my biomedical certification. I was applying for schools that had very reputable medical programs. I was ready to major in microbiology, and then the pandemic happened, and I literally watched the medical world crumble around me, and I decided that I did not want to be in that environment.”

The pandemic really changed Hale’s perspective on a future in the medical field, especially because she planned on studying epidemics.

In addition to gaining experience in the medical field in high school, Hale discovered a deep passion for civil rights.

“I had a really deep passion for law, communication with other people,” Hale said. “I did journalism all throughout high school and so I was like, ‘Okay, I can make a career out of this.’”

Hale headed off to college with plans of one day attending law school. She hopes to be able to provide free legal advice to low income communities.

“I’m really happy I went with this path actually, because I look at my friends who are like STEM majors and I cry for them,” Hale said. “I’m happy that I am not in that position anymore. I’m also a lot happier as a person knowing that my main goal in life is to help others – that’s what I want to do, I want to make change in a meaningful way – I believe doing that through law, being a lawyer or going into civil rights or going into journalism, I really am able to do that.”

In her limited free time, Hale enjoys trying new restaurants, bouldering at local rock climbing gyms, reading nonfiction, painting and sketching.

“I also played the violin for 12 years, and so typically when I have downtime, I like to pull it out, look at it, see if I’ll play it, or I’ll play the piano,” Hale said. “I like to do creative things because I don’t feel like I have enough time nowadays to be creative.”

Hale moved around a lot as a kid constantly, settling in Derby, Kan., long enough to graduate high school. She enjoyed visiting Kansas City with her mom, who commuted here during the week for a job in medical billing.

“I would go explore by myself and I would take the streetcar up and down Main Street and I would go to the River Market and explore, and for me personally, I always knew I would probably settle down in a city environment,” Hale said. “Just because I did grow up in more southern environments where there were lots of fields, lots of barns, cows, and so very excited to be in a city where life was happening. Life was loud, life was fast, and I was excited.”

She views Kansas City as a stepping stone to bigger cities, and a place where she can get her grounding as an individual and as an adult.

As Hale has gotten to know Historic Northeast, she’s come to love how close the community is, even though it is in a larger city.

“Other neighborhoods kind of feel a little disconnected and people just don’t stop and talk,” Hale said. “From my experience of being in Northeast all the time now with the internship and everything, I really see that people know each other, people talk to each other, people care for each other, and you just don’t really see that anywhere else, which I think is really interesting and really cool. It kind of reminds me of like small town environments where like everybody knows everybody but it’s on a more city level, which is exactly what I’m looking for because I want to live in a city but I also crave that small town culture, and Northeast kind of just provides that.”

If you see EllieAna out and about in Historic Northeast this summer, be sure to say hello and share your story!