Led by 6-foot-4 forward Cameron Brink, Stanford University won the women’s NCAA basketball title in 2021 — the team guided by Tara VanDerveer and now the winningest coach in college basketball history.
In high school, Brink was USA Today’s Oregon Player of the Year and a three-time Naismith High School All-America.
But Brink is dwarfed in other ways by a 5-foot-1 senior at Bonita Vista High School.
Nikki Luna’s her name. Journalism’s her game.
And the 17-year-old Chula Vistan is arguably the best prep reporter and editor in the nation.
If J-Schools recruited as hard as hoops powers, Nicolette Monique Luna would be the nation’s No. 1 blue-chip prospect.
Her recent run is unprecedented.
Last June, she won or shared six major San Diego SPJ College Media awards, including the James Julian Memorial Award for community service reporting.
In October, she was named National College Reporter of the Year for two-year colleges — the first dual-enrolled high school student (attending Southwestern College) honoree in the 105-year history of the Associated Collegiate Press.
And in January, she won the “Best Investigative Reporting” award from the American Scholastic Press Association. The college magazine she edited, El Sol, won the equivalent of the collegiate Pulitzer Prize.
That’s just the briefest of CVs.
Max Branscomb, her renowned journalism professor at Southwestern, says Luna has won more than 50 awards since she first took his introductory journalism class three years ago.
“I long ago lost track of her awards total,” Branscomb says.
Luna, who doesn’t turn 18 until May, has already been accepted at UC Berkeley. But her dream schools are in New York — Columbia University and NYU — and in Palo Alto. Stanford, in other words.
The Stanford Daily campus newspaper is as acclaimed as its sports teams. A year ago, the student-run paper won a George Polk Award. And Theo Baker, who graduates in 2026, won awards for investigations that led to the resignation last year of university President Marc Tessier-Lavigne.
God forbid Stanford (or her ultimate campus) not list peanuts in its cafeteria dishes. Or Luna would be posting scoops.
(Luna has a severe peanut allergy and says: “Up until recently, I would have frequent reactions that even got me hospitalized.”)
So how did Luna become such a journalistic powerhouse?
Credit DC Comics, a grade-school teacher — and Mom.
“When I was younger, I spoke little English and read even less,” she says. “It was a struggle for my mom to get me to read or write in English at all, especially since I also had difficulty with reading comprehension. She worked at it with me for years and I eventually got better.”
She says she fell in love with writing at age 10.
“My fifth-grade teacher changed my life,” Luna says. “She was a great teacher. She gave me the tools and confidence I needed to grow.”
With the Flash as her fave superhero, Luna says she’ll be a DC Comics fan “until the day I die.”
“They were the only thing my mom could get me to read when I was little. … My dad took me to Comic-Con three times,” she says. “I cried every time I saw Grant Gustin (The Flash from the CW show). Unfortunately, I haven’t been able to go back since COVID.”
Comic books piqued her interest in journalism — “specifically because of Lois Lane and Iris West, who were both journalists.”
Born and raised in San Diego, Luna attended Nestor Language Academy Charter School (K-3), Hedenkamp Elementary (4-6), Rancho del Rey Middle School (7-8), Otay Ranch High School (9) and the past three years at Bonita Vista High School in Chula Vista.
Her parents — high school sweethearts — went to Southwest High School, Southwestern College and San Diego State. Both are elementary school teachers.
Luna’s older brother, RJ, is 23 and just graduated from SDSU with a bachelor’s degree in business administration and works on a clothing brand called Playful.
“He and I work very well together,” she says. “We’ll help each other with any new projects and through any situation. He is my partner in crime.”
Luna calls her little sisters Estrella (12), Brissa (10) and Scarlett (6) “my three little minions.”
Her reaction to learning she’d won collegiate Reporter of the Year?
“I was already so excited when I won Reporter of the Year, but when Max told me that I was the first ever high school student to win it I was in absolute shock and felt so honored. … As I walked up to receive the award I remember thinking about Dr. Max, my family and the people whose stories made my receiving the award possible.”
She calls “Dr. Max” her journalism hero.
“He’s done it all and now he’s helping the next generation of journalists. He does everything and would do anything for his community.”
Except for her mom, Branscomb won’t be topped in the Mutual Admiration Society.
“I met Nikki when she was a 14-year-old in my Journalism 101: Mass Communication and Society class during the pandemic,” he says. “She earned the highest grade in the class. I had no idea how young she was.”
On the last day of class, Branscomb recalls, she asked if she could join The Sun student newspaper and the Bonitafest Committee.
“It took me .047 of a second to say yes,” he says.
Branscomb continued:
In short order, Nikki became News Editor of The Sun, then Associate Editor-in-Chief. She was unanimously chosen to serve as [editor-in-chief] of El Sol Magazine XII and did a brilliant job. It won a Pacemaker and was named National College Magazine of the Year by the Columbia University Scholastic Press Association, Society of Professional Journalists and American Scholastic Press Association.
It was also San Diego County College Magazine of the Year by San Diego Press Club and the San Diego Chapter of the Society of Professional Journalists. She won the SD SPJ’s Joseph Julian Memorial Award for Community Service and the national American Scholastic Press Association award for Outstanding Service to the Community.
El Sol Magazine XIII was also a brilliant publication thanks to Nikki’s leadership and writing. She wrote about one-third of the entire magazine. I am confident many more accolades will come El Sol’s way in the months ahead.
Last spring Nikki was invited by Southwestern College President Dr. Mark Sanchez to interview 95-year-old Holocaust survivor Benjamin Midler live on center stage of the Southwestern College Performing Arts Center.
For 30 minutes she conducted a brilliant interview with Mr. Midler in front of an audience of 300 and a cable TV broadcast. She also was co-presenter of original qualitative research on the community’s knowledge of global genocides.
Nikki was appointed co-chair of the 2022 Bonitafest Twilight Trial Parade with a 70-year-old veteran committee member. In 2023, she was entirely in charge of the parade. Again, she performed brilliantly.
She meticulously planned a parade with 1,000 participants that culminated in a three-hour performing arts festival. It was one of the best parades in the 51-year history of the Bonitafest.
After winning Reporter of the Year, Luna’s mother was the first to message her in Atlanta.
“She texted me and called me with my entire family behind her immediately after hearing the news,” Luna says. “When I came back to San Diego they all surprised me at lunch with congratulation posters, flowers.”
In mid-November, Chula Vista Mayor John McCann honored Luna with a proclamation at a City Council meeting — declaring Nov. 14 as Nicolette Luna Day in Chula Vista.
Gary Lundgren, associate director of Minneapolis-based Associated Collegiate Press, says a student concurrently studying at the high school and two-year college level had never won Reporter of the Year before Luna.
“Luna submitted an outstanding portfolio,” he says. “Portfolios included a news story, feature story and two additional pieces of the student’s choice published during the 2022-23 school year along with a résumé.”
Judges selected winners based on quality of writing, Lundgren says.
“Reporter of the Year is highly competitive,” he noted. “There is a lot of outstanding reporting and writing being produced by today’s collegiate journalists.”
Her entries titled “Holocaust remembrance” and “Area anti-Semitic incidents on the rise” elicited this reaction from SPJ judges:
What can we say about Nicolette Monique Luna except we are so impressed? Her stories on anti-Semitism expose hatred at school campuses and a public library, with news reporting set on a canvas of conversations with 80- and 90-year-old Holocaust survivors.
An intelligent reporter and sensitive writer, Nicolette also is the paper’s news editor. If that weren’t enough, Nicolette was 16 when she filed these stories in 2022. We can’t wait to see the places this outstanding young journalist will go.
This interview was conducted by email.
Times of San Diego: Does being Latino influence your academic and career choices?
Nikki Luna: It absolutely does. The lived experiences I have had as a Latina have encouraged me and pushed me in pursuing my academic and career interest. I strive to be good academically for my family and all their sacrifices. I strive to be a good journalist to help give a voice to the underserved like many of my fellow Latinos.
The news industry is in economic distress. What gives you hope for a career that pays a living wage?
For me, the incentive to go into journalism isn’t the wage. I am aware that the industry is in distress, but so are the people that suffer from underrepresentation in news media.
What did you learn at the Atlanta convention that encourages you to pursue a journalism career?
In Atlanta, we learned a lot about leadership in and out of the newsroom. I gained a lot of insight on how to be a better editor and especially about how to be a better journalist. I gained this insight from the inspiring stories that I heard from my colleagues about life changing stories they wrote.
What subjects would you like to more fully explore as a journalist?
I would like to explore economics and immigration more.
Some journalists express themselves politically on social media. How do you use social media? Should journalists express their personal views on social media or safeguard their reputations for objectivity by staying mum?
I use social media to see how people are reacting to current events. I myself do not express my political views on social media much though.
Some journalists urge an advocacy role when it comes to the 2024 presidential election — fearing a second Trump presidency would cripple democracy and many institutions. How do you view this call, and what are your views on a Trump re-election?
I do not support a Trump re-election.
Climate change and gun safety are other common concerns of your generation. How might your journalism influence these debates?
I have worked on stories about gun control and hope to work on some on climate change in the near future. I think journalism is essential to helping improve the issues through awareness of the harm they are causing.