Salem resident Owen Marksbury is an author and soon to be correspondent with an international audience.

He’s also 10 years old.

The Kalapuya Elementary fifth grader is one of 28 students around the world selected as a Kid Reporter for Scholastic this school year. 

He’ll write articles about everything from climate change to local sports, to be published on the Scholastic website and in Scholastic magazine, which reaches 13 million U.S. kids.

“I thought it would be a great opportunity to inform kids about our community, what’s going on,” Marksbury said.

Scholastic started the program in 2000 as a way to bring the presidential election into the classroom “through a young person’s perspective,” said Suzanne McCabe, editor of Scholastic Kids Press.

Since then, the program has expanded to feature articles about almost every topic imaginable, all with the goal of “news for kids, by kids.” Students are 10 to 14 years old. This year’s class includes journalists from 17 U.S. states and eight other countries: Australia, Canada, China, Japan, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore, and South Korea.

“Kids write about sports, entertainment, climate change, they interview people making a difference in their community and on the national and international stage,” McCabe said.

Marksbury learned about the program in school and applied, writing in part about climate change and wildfires. He was selected from hundreds of applicants based on the strength of his writing.

Marksbury was born in Kansas and his family moved to Oregon just before the 2020 Labor Day wildfires.

“Every time we went outdoors it was hard to breathe,” Marksbury said. 

He hopes his reporting can help inform people about the world they’re living in as extreme weather becomes more common.

“I wanted to write about it to protect people, show them what it’s like,” he said.

It won’t all be serious topics for Marksbury. He loves to read, devouring fantasy and science fiction, and is often in the middle of more books than he can count. 

In second grade, he wrote a 70 page adventure fantasy book, which his dad called “pretty impressive for a second grader.” More recently, he’s authored a book called “The Stone Katana.”

Marksbury is covering the annual West Coast Giant Pumpkin Regatta, held Oct. 21 in Tualatin. He’s interviewing the organizer and hopes to speak with a winner or participant about taking to the water in a giant squash.

He also plans to write about baseball, interviewing friends who play Little League, and speak with Jeff Kinney, author of the bestselling “Diary of a Wimpy Kid.”

“His books are hilarious,” Marksbury said. “One scene was so funny that I cried.”

McCabe, who’s been with the Kid Reporter program since its inception, said kids bring unique perspectives to the news they cover. She recalled a campaign event where a kid reporter was in a security line and wrote about security dogs sniffing out their lunches.

“They bring a sense of humor… and they really have a firm sense of right and wrong and what’s fair and unfair,” she said. 

Kids are more likely to ask prominent people questions to figure out what kind of person they are, she said, rather than what type of politician. Education is a top issue for kids, particularly teacher shortages.

Marksbury’s application stood out for his enthusiasm and his willingness to tackle tough topics like climate change, she said.

At school, Marksbury said his classmates are excited and have looked him up on the Scholastic website. He’s proud and a little nervous for his writing to have such a large audience. But mostly, Marksbury said he’s looking forward to interviewing people.

“I think it’s really cool that I get to ask people to share,” he said.

Contact reporter Rachel Alexander: [email protected] or 503-575-1241.

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