McIntosh High’s Rebekah Bushmire is a leader in the making. Bushmire, a junior at MHS, has been named a Student Press Law Center New Voices Student Leader for the upcoming school year.

Bushmire, the managing editor of the McIntosh Legend yearbook and the editor-in-chief of the McIntosh Trail news site, is one of 19 students from 10 states participating in this year’s New Voices Institute.

New Voices is a student-powered nonpartisan grassroots movement of state-based activists who seek to protect student press freedom with state laws. They host the annual New Voices Student Leaders Institute, a free online program for students to improve their leadership and organizing skills.

“The pressure to censor content and topics is real and palpable,” Bushmire says in her New Voices biography. “I believe in the freedom of the press, and believe it is essential that young voices be heard through the censors and the noise.”