by Jolene Anderson
Seniors Johanna Ziegler and Corrin Nielsen have been friends since their freshman year, where it was then they discovered their passion for journalism and media. These passions along with support from Minarets Press and the Minarets Media program encouraged them to produce a podcast for their Senior Legacy Experience: The 7th C.
The name, according to Ziegler was decided after a month of brainstorming. She explained, “We’d been brainstorming names for about a month, but we weren’t liking any of the names we had so far. Then my sister Greta suggested a playoff of the Minarets 6 Cs. So right away I spun around, called Corrin, and it was actually Corrin's idea to make The seventh C a running mystery to keep up engagement.”
Both students explained their inspiration to produce a podcast came from their passion for art and material. Nielsen explained, “Joh and I had done a podcast with each other before this, so once we got to the podcast studio, we thought it would be really fun to do a podcast for our SLE.” Ziegler added to it saying that media/news projects like the Mustang Minute (a former school news show) were what brought them closer together, so their podcast was “kind of like a full-circle moment.”
While the podcast’s news reports are more scripted, Ziegler says that the segments that are closer to their personality like “Nielsen Nitpicks” and “The Ziegler Dictionary of Random Words” are planned vaguely and are mostly improvised. Both Ziegler and Nielsen agree that writing the script, specifically segment transitions, is the most arduous aspect of producing the podcast. An example given in the interview was the transition between the “The Ziegler Dictionary of Random Words” and another news segment in which they had to connect tyrotoxism (the act of poisoning with cheese) to reports about newly hired teachers. But, they agreed that their favorite part of the podcast was listening to their voices out of the equipment because it gave them a sense of “oh, this is real.”
Junior Jazymn Evans recently listened to the podcast and said, "The 7th C was not anything like what I was expecting at all. However, it did not disappoint one bit! It was comforting being able to relate and feel encouraged by their messages. Also, I learned a fun new vocab word: tyrotoxism! If you want to get in on the inside joke, I highly suggest you play the first episode of their podcast!”
Want to give it a listen? You can find all the episodes on Spotify as well as the Minarets Press page. Ziegler and Nielsen are also excited to announce that they are now streaming on Youtube through the Minarets Press channel.
Be sure to follow their Instagram @the_7th_c to stay up to date.
New episodes come out every two weeks!