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NATCHEZ — A Natchez native and senior at Mississippi School for the Arts in Brookhaven has put his passion for writing into practice and revived and transformed his school newspaper, putting copies into the hands of not only his classmates but printing stories in newspapers around the region.

Cooper Brumfield, the son of Joanna Kidder and Cliff Brumfield, interned last summer at The Natchez Democrat where he became acquainted with its Publisher, Stacy Graning.

After his internship, Brumfield decided he would collaborate with Graning to give life to the previously discontinued school newspaper called Rise.

“Rise was created (in 2020) by an alum named Maleigh Crespo,” he said. “She actually works for the newspaper for Loyola in New Orleans, but it was exclusively an online paper and then for her last go around, she did one paper in print.”

Unfortunately, the handoff didn’t go well after Crespo’s class graduated, Brumfield said.

“No one had made a post on the online forum for years,” he said. “I got in contact with Maleigh and she gave me all the admin information for the online paper. And then I decided to talk to Stacy about maybe printing again eventually and we came up with a system where we’d be able to print and add things to different papers across the state.”

The revived paper printed its first edition in October. Around 200 copies were distributed at the school and another 2,000 were printed in the Brookhaven Daily Leader, he said.

“This December, we’re having an eight-pager printed out, which will be in different papers across the state,” he said. “We’re starting up our online paper again in January, and it’s been nice. I have about a 15-person writing staff with a lot of different people, including social media team writers. It’s been exciting.”

Content is a mixture of campus activities, campus life and then whatever the writers themselves want to talk about in online blog posts, such as current events or movies and books they enjoy. Those interested in becoming students can also learn about the admission process and deadlines thanks to the student writers, Brumfield said.

Brumfield is considering a few college offers for after he graduates, the Millsaps College in Jackson, Columbia College in Chicago, and the University of Iowa to name a few.

His top choice is Emerson College in Boston, he said. Brumfield intends to pursue a double major in Creative Writing and Anthropology to add another level of knowledge and understanding of human nature and culture to his writing, he said.

After school, he sees himself being a published author and maybe working as a college professor, Brumfield said.

In total, he has amassed around $300,000 in scholarships to different colleges.

His experience with the school paper has been rewarding, he said.
“It has created the sense of community with a bunch of students that really wouldn’t have interacted with each other if it wasn’t for that setting,” he said, including some with an interest in writing and some without any writing interest.

“I had some people who specifically came to me because they wanted to be part of the social media team or they wanted to be a photographer,” he said. “It’s a handful of different things. The main point of this club is to expand and hopefully find other students who have same interest as me in garnering more understanding of and developing their love for what they do.”

Apart from running the newspaper club, Brumfield is on the executive board of the Student Government Association and is active in “Poetry Out Loud” — a performative poetry competition.

“I just won my schoolwide event, so I’ll be going to Jackson State in January. I would say close to

to 1,000 or 2,000 people participate in that where it starts very large and they file through.”

The readers chose the poem to memorize and recite, Brumfield said,

“One has to be pre-20th century and one has to be below 25 lines so it’s a spectrum,” he said.

He chose “December 1919” by Claude McKay and “Rondeau” by Leigh Hunt, both of which are short poems to give Brumfield time to work on performance, he said.

“The advice given to me was to not be so focused on the poem as a performative piece, but as a poem. Find poems that you like so you can easier to connect to them,” he said. “I find I’m way better at memorizing songs that I like than the ones I don’t like. I enjoy them and I understand them. If you understand and enjoy the poem, it’s easy to memorize.”

Brumfield said he is working to create a name for himself with the different works he has published and with an upcoming showcase in May featuring playwriting, short stories and poems.

“I have 10 published pieces here at (The Natchez Democrat), and then I have been published in four individual magazines, plus a play that’s been published,” he said.

He has also been recognized by the Mississippi Scholastic Press Association as a finalist in Best Dramatic Word, Best Flash Fiction and Best Short Story categories.

Brumfield said he takes inspiration from notable writers such as Oscar Wilde, CS Elliot and Jack London.

His goal for the newspaper club is for it to last, he said.

“I hope to see it become more than anything I was able to ever accomplish,” Brumfield said. “I’ve been working with a couple of people getting everything ready to be handed off in May. I just hope that there are enough people around me that have the same passion for writing that I do so that it can carry on and that it doesn’t die out again.”