Lily Middleton combines her love of journalism and history
Lily Middleton
By Katie Livermore, CLA Student Writer - September 25, 2025
Lily Middleton, ‘25, has always been enamored with history and its power. Now, her goal is a continued focus on Holocaust education for future generations.
Born in San Jose, California, Middleton was a self-described “choir kid,” and grew up with a supportive, diverse friend group through school. She was also involved with sports, like volleyball.
During her junior year of high school, she was placed in the newspaper class.
“I was like ‘I don't want to do this,’” Middleton said. “I also heard that the teacher was tough and he would make people rewrite stories last minute–pretty brutal. So I tried getting out of it.”
Spoiler alert–Middleton did not get out of the newspaper class. Instead, she made the best of it and became a photographer and Student Life Editor. She added her newspaper friends to her band and athlete circles.
Senior year, Middleton became a co-managing editor and began teaching photography to the rest of the class. That year, the paper won the National Pacemaker Award from the National Scholastic Press Association, the highest honor in American student journalism awards, for their excellence in coverage, content, photography, graphics, and overall quality of work.
“I still have never from the ages of 16 to 22 taken a photography class,” Middleton said. “I just kind of made it up and learned as I went.”
Her first summer back from college, she returned to her high school as a guest speaker to teach photography to the same newspaper class.
Middleton wasn’t exactly itching to go to college during high school. Her mom signed her up for a college preparation course and scheduled two tours in Oregon–one of which was Oregon State University.
“I loved it the second we drove onto the campus,” Middleton said. “I was like, ‘this is incredible.’”
When Middleton toured, she found Orange Media Network (OMN), where she was welcomed with open arms. She couldn’t stop thinking about her visit, and landed upon OSU as her dream school.
During her freshman year, she started as a photographer at OMN, focusing on sports and taking every assignment she could get her hands on. It even led to a trip to cover the Beaver football team’s appearance in the Jimmy Kimmel LA Bowl in Los Angeles, where she worked alongside professional photographers from other news outlets.
Later on, she started freelance photography on her own, covering the OSU Women’s Lacrosse team and OSU Women’s Basketball team.
“Even though I didn't stick with it, it was cool just to know I could do that,” Middleton said.
During her sophomore year, Middleton branched out from photography and became the OSU Women’s Volleyball team beat reporter for The Daily Barometer.
“I played volleyball in high school and did club volleyball, open gyms and stuff freshman and sophomore year,” Middleton said. “It was fun to get to know some of the girls on the team.”
She couldn’t stay away from photography for long, however, and started to explore lifestyle magazine shoots and even more controversial hard news photo coverage. During the encampments for Palestine, Middleton was the primary photographer that covered the event.
“It was nice to show how my photo journalism interests translated to history, peace, and literacy,” Middleton said.
Middleton began college as a political science major with minors in constitutional law and applied journalism. After about two years, she realized her love of history. Classes with Dr. Kara Ritzheimer and Dr. Paul Kopperman inspired her to change her major to focus on history and peace studies.
“I was annoying in class,” Middleton said. “I was one of those people in the back that's always raising their hand. It always had to do with German history and World War II.”
After one class, Middleton was invited by Dr. Kopperman to intern with the Holocaust Memorial Committee. For the next two years, she met with Holocaust survivors and planned events throughout the year.
“It was the most rewarding thing ever, because most of my time being a history major, I took many classes like Hitler's Europe [HST 338] and Holocaust and History [HST 425],” Middleton said. “Once I actually started working in the internship, it made it worth it. Then it was like, I'm not just learning [sic] and maintaining this information, I'm doing something with it.”
Now, she’s met Holocaust survivors like Dr. Irene Butter and Dr. Eliyana Adler, pioneering Holocaust educators and even her favorite author, Wendy Lower, who wrote the Holocaust book, The Ravine.
Now, Middleton hopes to continue her history journey in graduate school somewhere abroad in Europe–hopefully Germany or Norway—after spending several months studying abroad in Berlin. First, she’s taking a gap year living in Seattle with friends, where she hopes to continue learning German, taking photos and even start volunteering at a museum.
“My gap year, it's going to be me deciding what I want to do for a grad program, if I want to stick with Holocaust education, or if I want to branch out and go more general like public education,” Middleton said. “The best way to combat a lot of the issues that led to the Holocaust, and that Holocaust education seeks to combat, are based in public education. So I think that's the path I'm going.”