¨Determined, motivated, strong.¨

Three simple words to describe South Carolina’s Journalist of the Year, senior Greyson Webb.

Webb was recognized as the S.C. Journalist of the Year at the South Carolina Scholastic Press Association’s spring convention April 1.

“She’s been here [Legend staff] for three years, she started as a sophomore and has been here through the whole journey,” said Phillip Caston, yearbook adviser and journalism teacher. “She’s editor in chief now. You know how they are — they’re the most involved, they have the most work to do. She started as a writer with the academic section, she was an extremely talented writer and did the job.”

She transferred to Wando her sophomore year, joining the yearbook staff and winning her first award for writing that year. As a junior she moved on to become academics editor.

Webb’s writing is what made her stand out on staff, particularly her interview skills.

“She really took up her stories, she took boring topics and made them interesting, worth reading, which is pretty crucial for a journalist,” Caston said.

Webb began writing for her journalism classes and took off from there, building more confidence in her work.

“I always loved writing and in middle school, my teachers would, like, hold up my paper and use them as examples,” Webb said. “You know when someone is telling you you’re good at something, you’re going to want to keep doing it.”

But just like others, she has her own story to tell.

“I am a pretty strong person just because I’ve gone through experiences that not everyone goes through,” Webb said. “The reason I got into journalism is because I felt the need to tell stories of people who don’t get told very often.”

When Webb was in sixth grade, her younger brother passed away from a rare disease called Omenn syndrome. Omenn syndrome is a form of severe combined immunodeficiency (SCID). Omenn syndrome can be diagnosed as young as three and a half months old and can include symptoms such as swollen lymph nodes, enlarged liver and diarrhea. SCID can be fatal. It can be cured through a bone marrow transplant.

“After my brother died, I felt like everything in my life was kind of falling apart. So I turned to the one thing I could control, which was my education, and I found that my education thrives the most in my writing,” Webb said.

“I remember we had the Post and Courier come and write a story on my family and give awareness to this syndrome,” she continued. “It gave my mom a platform to cause medical reform in South Carolina. So that babies are now — when they’re born — they’re required to be tested for SCID. We actually had two years ago, the first baby was caught with SCID and because he was caught early, the baby was able to make it pretty far in its life.”

As a sophomore, she has also lost her friend, Faith Dutton, in a fatal car accident in May 2017.

“She was such a unique person, beautiful journalist, too, she could write insane stories.” Webb said.

Dutton was a sophomore writer on Legend staff with Webb, who said she had a great friendship with Faith.