Rosen president allows students to check into college

The front-page package today brought readers back to the local scene with a story on the students of Tangelo Park, a community where students' financial woes no longer inhibited them from attending college.


Hotelier Harris Rosen, president of Rosen Hotels and Resorts, invented the Tangelo Park Program and has since then accrued more than $7.3 million to its cause. The money gives underprivileged children of the area the opportunity to attend college wthout having to worry about the hefty price tag.


The article flows well; each proposed reader question is immediately answered in preceeding paragraphs. However, I would have been more compelled to hear more of a student-propelled response. The article opens with a uniue angle: Terrence Carson, a recipient of the scholarship, ironically ended up filling the charity's founder's presription at a local Walgreens. It is nice to see quotation on how thankful he is, but I would have liked to see more student-based accounts of the funding.


Carson's account, though, is not one to be discredited. The writer was smart to approach this article from such a unique nd ironic perspective. And the reporter did a great job interiewing her supjects to find out this sort of information.


In fact, the interviewing skills of this reporter shine through the article.


"'This guy didn't know our community from a can of paint,' said Carson, who still works for Walgreens and lives outside Atlanta. But he changed a place 'that didn't have a ray of hope.'"


There are two factors related to this quote that lend to great interviewing skills.
1. It's important to note that the subject used for the opening of the article does not live in Tangelo Park, or Florida for that matter. He lives in Atlanta, so I am confident that the reporter took not only all of the steps to cover the subject, but went that extra mile to reinforce the success of this operation.
2. This quote also reveals that the reporter's subject must have been comfortable with the reporter. It can be hard to render metaphor out of a subject. That ease of conversation comes either with the eloquence of a great interviewee or via extensive interview.


It's great to see a human-interest piece find its home on the front page of the paper, on a Sunday nonetheless! I am elated that humanity bought out the myriad of pieces that claim the front page regarding the upcoming elections.