Julie Elston is a long standing and beloved Journalism/English teacher at Crown Point High School, and she has been teaching those classes for a little over 30 years. Elston paved a path for many of her students, allowing them to get coached by her expertise and win awards along their journalism journey.

Elston originally started teaching both Yearbook and Journalism in Griffith before taking a break to be with her newly born daughters and then later coming to Crown Point to exclusively teach Journalism.

While she was advising the Crown Point student newspaper, Inklings, they went on to win Top State Honors and even Top National Honors. Many of the journalism students that she has taught throughout the years have gone on to become finalists and State Journalist of the Year and Collegiate Journalist of the Year. They were also recognized as the Hoosier Star, NSPA Pacemaker, CSPA Gold Crown, and Quill and Scroll George H. Remarkably, the last year that Elston had taught her journalism students the Inklings were inducted into the hall of fame.

“To end it with a hall of fame, I couldn’t be more proud,” Elston said, “I don’t look back and have regrets, we did it,” Elston said.

Not only did she lead her students to victory, but Elston was also awarded by the HSPA for being the 2012 Advisor of the Year, as well as for being Crown Point’s Education Association’s 2013 Crystal Bell Teacher of the Year. 

“When I look back through my advising career I think, what was it that my staff wasn’t able to accomplish?” Elston said.

Even though Elston had gone through every high and low with her students, she somehow managed to always put her students first and make sure everyone knew the hard work they put into creating every article of every edition.

When being inducted into the hall of fame it requires you to be nominated. Before getting the surprise that their name would be up in the hall of fame, they earned 10 All-American ratings from the NSPA Critique Service within an 11-year span.

“I’m really proud of all of the staff I was able to work with, and all of the achievements and pinnacles they were able to reach. What more could I have asked for?” Elston said.

Elston would continuously look back, reminiscing on all the memories that she had made with her former students, and although she is still currently teaching at Crown Point High School she will always miss the days that she was the Inklings’ advisor. 

“Life has different stages,” Elston said, “It’s not because I didn’t love it, it’s just because after 30 years there’s just time to go to the next phase,” Elston said. 

Elston has been teaching for 30 years, and the majority of those years were spent in Crown Point. She built Inklings to what it was today from both her handwork and dedication. When she was in high school she never really thought about going into a field pertaining to journalism.

“My counselor recommended that I take journalism,” Elston said. “He said that it just seemed like something I’d enjoy and be good at.”

Eventually she says that she got “bit by the bug” and has had a passion for it ever since. That passion took her to college, gaining her bachelors in Journalism at Indiana University, and quickly started teaching at Griffith, staying there for eight years.

“I blended my love of journalism with my love of teaching,” Elston said.

 There, she advised both the Yearbook staff and Journalism staff resulting in hundreds of issues of newspapers and yearbooks.

Her first Crown Point publication was in 1992, and while teaching and advising the Journalism editors, Elston had ups and downs. COVID-19 definitely changed the newspaper, resulting in there being no more physical newspaper, instead Elston and the staff decided on the decision to place it in a format where it can be a magazine instead, allowing for more pictures and design.

“I’ve been so blessed because the talent of the students I was able to work with I mean they all had their wonderful moments and their wonderful publications,” Elston said “but the achievements that they’ve reached were the highest and I couldn’t have asked for more.”

Both Elston and the students had to adapt to these abrupt changes, but the biggest change was Elston’s last year advising Inklings.

“It was a great ride, there’s nothing but fun memories attached to my time here being an Inkling’s advisor,” Elston said.

She will forever be known as a great teacher and advisor. Her work ethic pushed many students to who they are today.

“I’m still in contact with so many of them, and I know that beyond high school they are just wonderful people whether they’ve gone into journalism or not they’ve used their talents in so many ways,” Elston said.

Being able to win awards and impact others with teaching is definitely a gift in which she possessed. Now she can be seen teaching English at Crown Point still spreading her love of learning with the next generation.

“The first publication or the 30th year, it’s something in which there’s nothing like it,” Elston said, “A former student said it best, where you work on something for so long and then you’re holding it in your hands and he just said ‘Oh my gosh! We made this!”

You can find a link to the last issue Elston advised here.

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