With the summer now behind us, a fresh new school year lies ahead. Nonetheless, the 2025 school year brings with it much more than a new set of classes and an added row to the transcript.
Within this newspaper, the long-held seat of faculty adviser has experienced its first transition of power in decades. Following the retirement of English teacher Norman S. Thompson, Ginny McCarley will take the reins of our school’s most established outlet for student journalism, the Owl’s Hoot. McCarley, an Upper School English teacher and a longtime journalist herself, brings with her a wide variety of skills that will invariably help the Hoot usher in a new era of excellence.
McCarley, who holds a BA in English literature from the University of Alabama (“Roll Tide!!!” she commented) and an MA in literature from the University of Mississippi, came to MUS during the 2024 school year, teaching several sections of English to our freshman class.
Despite her fairly recent arrival at MUS, McCarley’s skill set in the field of journalism has been in the making for several years. During her high school years, McCarley first entered the world of journalism through her school’s newspaper. After attending Alabama, McCarley worked at the Over the Mountain Journal and the Shelby County Reporter, covering stories as unorthodox as a record-setting 10-foot tomato plant and as serious as one individual’s recovery from a violent crime.
While McCarley’s time in journalism was certainly well-spent, her desire for teaching led her back to graduate school. During her time in Oxford, Miss., however, McCarley continued to pursue journalistic projects on occasion, most notably through her work with The Washington Post in covering a tornado which hit the town of Rolling Fork, Miss. in the spring of 2023.
In her second year at MUS, McCarley now stands at the start of yet another chapter in her passion for writing. As the new adviser for the Owl’s Hoot, McCarley will serve in a variety of capacities to facilitate the maintenance and professionalism of our paper, along with reinforcing dialogue between the paper’s student editors and the school administration.
As both a teacher and writer, McCarley believes “the power of stories” to be the source of passion in her professional ventures. Truly, the ability to recount events—whether trivial or troubling—is one that has captivated both writer and reader alike in the Hoot for decades. In the efforts of the Owl’s Hoot to truly represent the voices of our student body and to accurately document ongoing campus events, this passion aligns with the very founding principles of our paper.
By bringing her unique journalistic experience to the table and holding the power of the pen in great regard, it is safe to assume that McCarley’s tenure as faculty adviser for MUS’s newspaper will be one defined by deeper student involvement, improved faculty-student collaboration, and a paper which ultimately achieves its mission to a higher degree than ever before.