Senior Spotlight: Henry Krueger’s Journey from Childhood Newspaper to Bulletin Editor-in-Chief

This piece is part of our Senior Stories series, in which we highlight GU students throughout the year.

Name: Henry Krueger
Major: Journalism and Broadcast & Electronic Media Studies
Hometown: Sacramento, California

On the 13-hour drive from Sacramento to Spokane to begin his freshman year of college, Henry Krueger sat in the passenger seat of his mom’s Subaru Outback, balancing a laptop on his knees—writing his very first story for the Gonzaga Bulletin.

Krueger applied for the Bulletin the summer before his freshman year, and he recalls his mom taking the wheel while he was writing.

He submitted the story from the car, and after arriving on campus, marched straight to the Bulletin table at the move-in fair to meet the editors face to face. The following semester he was promoted to sports editor, then managing editor in the spring of his junior year.

Krueger, now a senior and editor-in-chief of the Gonzaga Bulletin, considers the paper a foundational community for his college experience.

“The Bulletin has always been just very inviting and welcoming to me,” Krueger says, sitting in the Bulletin office, the wall behind him covered in the paper’s past front-pages.

“It’s brought me to places on campus that I would have never thought that I’d ever explore, and places in Spokane that I never thought I’d explore. It’s just opened a lot of opportunities for me, I would say, and also just refined my love for journalism.”

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On a March day in his freshman year of high school, Krueger was sitting around a conference table with his parents, a handful of teachers and the school principal. He was on academic probation with a 2.6 GPA, with over 80 detentions on his record.

“I was suspended for the second time, facing expulsion. I had a trial at my school where three teachers basically peppered me with questions.” The questions related to conduct issues in class and with peers.

“It kind of felt like I was on the witness stand,” he jokes.

“I had some behavioral issues, I would say. Growing up with ADHD it’s kind of been a common pattern.”

One of the teachers on the panel was the advisor to the school newspaper, The Plank. Krueger saw an opportunity to appeal his fate.

“I said, ‘Hey, if I’m let back into school, I’ll use all my good energy to write for The Plank, and tell other people’s stories.’”

After answering questions and giving a personal statement, he went home and waited for the verdict.

“I think what was going through my head was just how much better I can do with the life that I have, and the resources that I have,” Krueger says. “I was definitely nervous that I was going to be expelled, because I was told there was a very high likelihood. They told that to me and my dad right beforehand.”

Krueger says he doesn’t know if it was his interest in the newspaper that convinced the committee, but they ultimately voted to let him back into school. He worked as a staff writer for The Plank during his sophomore year, and the following two years served as editor-in-chief.

“It was a huge turnaround for me,” says Krueger.

“I still have the email that said, Henry Krueger has been expelled from Jesuit High School,” he adds with a smile. “I think it’s funny now. Sometimes I still pull it up.”

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Years after his near-expulsion, Krueger’s work has reached audiences on regional and national levels. Thanks to a connection with former journalism faculty member John Kafentzis, he started writing for the Associated Press in 2023 as their Gonzaga basketball correspondent.

“[Kafentzis] said that the Associated Press was looking for a Gonzaga student, he approached me about it. And then I met with the sports editor for Washington for the AP, basically got on board and did that all of last year.”

Krueger credits his experience in high school journalism and the Bulletin with helping him keep up with the fast-paced nature of covering sports for a national news outlet.

As editor-in-chief of the Bulletin, Krueger also has a myriad of responsibilities.

“I oversee all phases of production,” says Krueger. “That’s updating the website on a daily basis, editing at least 3 to 4 stories every day and then uploading them.”

Despite his busy schedule, Krueger enjoys being a leader and watching his staff grow in skill and confidence.

“I think it’s really cool to watch the learning process of younger editors and staff writers and help them along in their journeys.”

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Journalism and an appreciation for sports have always been integral in Krueger’s family. His uncle works for KNBR, a radio station in the Bay Area, covering the San Francisco 49ers. Krueger’s dad has a background in traditional journalism as well.

“My dad was the editor-in-chief of the Daily Californian at UC Berkeley,” he says. “That was, I guess, my first introduction to journalism. My dad showing me articles he wrote in high school and college.”

The introduction clearly had an impact—in fourth grade, Krueger was inspired to start his own class newspaper. Unsurprisingly, he covered sports. One of his classmates contributed drawings for a comics section. Krueger also included a “fake” advertisements section, including things such as his uncle’s podcast.

“And then me and my dad would go to Kinko’s, which is a printing place, and I’d print them out,” says Krueger.

After graduation this upcoming spring, Krueger isn’t sure where he’ll end up—but he’s optimistic it will be at a newspaper.

“I would love to work in traditional journalism,” he says. “I would also welcome a position where I could do podcasting, radio, and video.”

Doing the work he loves is more important to Krueger than where he might be living, but he’s not ruling out staying in Spokane.

“I love it up here,” he says. “It’s been great these last four years, and I wouldn’t mind staying at all.”

Unfortunately, his former 4th grade newspaper is no longer hiring.

“We folded,” Krueger says with a laugh. “Business. It’s tough.”