My name is Michael Franz, and I have been Carroll High School’s Director of Communications since September 2015. My role at Carroll boils down to this: tell the story of Carroll High School. I accomplish this through writing profiles, shooting pictures, producing videos, designing ads, and guiding our communications strategy and resources that ultimately appear in digital, broadcast, and print media.

After graduating from Carroll, I attended the University of Tampa in Florida to major in communications with an emphasis on writing and journalism. The years I spent in Florida brought many personal and educational blessings in my life. I dreamed of being the next great American sports broadcaster and was fortunate enough to gain professional experience while pursuing my degree. I’ll always remember my days as an intern at the area’s largest sports talk radio station (WHBO AM 1040) and the Tampa Bay area’s NBC affiliate. Tampa Bay hosted the Super Bowl during my final semester in spring 2009. Helping with our coverage leading up to the game is one of the highlights of my professional career. I was even able to earn a paycheck covering high school sports for the Tampa Tribune while finishing my degree.

My first journalism job after graduation was working as an assignment editor back home in Dayton at WHIO-TV in November 2009. I learned so much from so many great people, especially long time Sports Director Mike Hartsock who gave me the opportunity to cover sports in Dayton. I covered countless high school games and athletes, Ohio State football, and Dayton Flyers basketball, including following the team to Buffalo, New York, and Memphis, Tennessee on their Elite Eight run in 2014.

During my time as a student at Carroll, the idea of one day coming home as a staff member appealed to me even before graduating in 2005. Unfortunately, working as a teacher was something that I thought did not fit my skill set, and the position I have now did not exist at the time, so I did not spend much time throughout college and my early career thinking about how I could return to Carroll. When I saw a Facebook post on Carroll’s page in August 2015 seeking applicants for the new position of Director of Communications, I heard a voice in my heart telling me that this opportunity was made for me.

While the early part of my career prepared me for my current role at Carroll, my time as a student will always be the most formative years of my life. Coming from a school that did not send many students to Carroll, I quickly learned how crucial communication with strangers would be to my future success. The five-sentence outline structure I learned from Miss Downie (now Mrs. Clark) in freshman Honors English gave me the tools I needed to efficiently conceptualize and write not just papers and essays for college, but also many projects working as a journalist and communications manager. Walking the school’s halls and interacting with current students on a daily basis shows me that today’s faculty and staff are still instilling those same values and lessons in current students, and continuing that Patriot legacy is one of the greatest joys in my life.