For your Brandon scholarship winner, we offer a full cup of Coffey

Claire Coffey, pictured here on a reporting junket with Grant High classmate Shayla Senna, is aiming for a career in writing. The photo was taken during the 2023 Portland Public Schools teachers strike. Senna made nearly 80 burritos to give to picketing teachers (courtesy Claire Coffey)

Claire Coffey isn’t sure exactly what her future holds, but she has a pretty good plan put together.

She will soon enroll at Northwestern University and major in journalism, hoping to focus on investigative and multi-media reporting. She wants to be involved in the journalism scene in Evanston, Ill., to prepare for a career in writing.

“My goal is to graduate in four years, then see if I can get a job out of college and hit the ground running,” says Coffey, a Grant High graduate and the 2025 recipient of the Steve Brandon Scholarship. “I don’t know yet about graduate school. If I see that I need it to advance more in my career, I would consider it. But I am going to take advantage of my opportunities.”

For nearly a half-century, Brandon — who died in 2022 of a heart attack at age 68 — wrote sports for Portland newspapers. For 19 of those years, he served as sports editor of the Portland Tribune. He was the consummate pro, well-respected, well-liked and reliable as a rooster’s sunrise cock-a-doodle-doo.

Brandon would have approved of the second winner of his scholarship (Roseburg’s Carter Stedman won in 2024). Northwestern’s Medill School of Journalism is one of the premier programs in the country. Coffey, a 4.0 student at Grant, has the academic chops for admittance.

When I ask how she managed to get through high school without drawing a single “B” grade, she deflects credit to those around her.

“I had great teachers,” Claire says. “There was a lot of support. I always knew what they expected, but they were also very flexible if anything came up. I also had great support from my parents (Eric and Kara). A lot of late nights, my Mom would be up with me, making sure I did my homework. I played volleyball and traveled sometimes, but somehow I got it done.”

The Dean of Portland Sports is now on BlueSky.

Coffey’s list of activities at Grant are considerable. Besides acing every course she took over four years, she served as editor of Grant Magazine, was a member of the Grant Constitution Team, was a three-year varsity volleyball letter-winner, was co-president of the school’s Japanese Immersion Student Council and was vice president of the United People youth group.

As a sophomore, Claire was co-writer on an expose piece in Grant Magazine about Eric Watkins, whose Instagram and Twitter account called “Elite Oregon Girls” featured stories about female high school athletes in the state. Watkins used social media to send inappropriate messages to some of those girls. The Salem-Keizer School District took away Watkins’ media credential and banned him from attending events in the district. Claire and junior Eva Swinow investigated the situation and broke a story that made news across the state.

“Eva and I got the idea and pitched it,” Coffey says. “Our work started conversations questioning what young female athletes had to endure to receive media coverage. Through this experience, I learned how powerful reporting can be.”

In 2024 and ’25, 36 seniors participated on the Grant Constitution Team, learning about constitutional law, history and principles of America. Six six-person groups focused on one angle.

“Mine was modern democracy,” Coffey says. “We spent a whole year learning about that.”

Grant’s team placed third in state competition.

“We all worked cooperatively,” Coffey says. “It was a worthwhile experience.”

Claire played junior varsity volleyball as a freshman, advanced as a reserve as a sophomore and started as a junior and senior as a 5-2 setter on a Generals team that won back-to-back PIL championships.

Claire was a two-year starter as a setter on the Grant volleyball team that claimed back-to-back PIL championships (courtesy Claire Coffey)

“I love volleyball,” she says. “The program grew a lot during my four years. Our coaches (head coach Erin Cole, assistant Erin McNulty) put so much into the program. I respect them so much.”

Coffey’s mother is of Japanese descent. Claire took half-day Japanese all through elementary school.

“Mom put me in the program in pre-K because she had spent time in Japan and felt it was valuable to learn another language,” Claire says. “She also wanted me to be able to connect with my culture and heritage and be with kids who had similar backgrounds.

“The program has a lot of Japanese-American kids. I loved it. There is a deep sense of community within the program, but it also relies on students who have so much parental support. They foster that to be creative. We put on some events to help other student organizations at the school to expose them to the components of Japanese culture and create another space for students to bond.”

The summer before her junior year, Coffey spent a month in Japan as Grant’s junior ambassador to the Sapporo Summer Institute in a cultural exchange with Portland’s sister city.

“Unite People” is a multi-cultural group of high school students who meet monthly.

“It gathers kids from any culture across the Portland metro area,” Claire says. “I am with kids who share my identity. We have similar outlooks on life. (Members are) positive, friendly and welcoming. Everyone works so hard and cares so deeply about treating others with kindness and respect. Every year we helped out with one or two community volunteer events. It was really cool.”

Claire leaves Saturday for Northwestern to prepare for the start of fall term the following week. She has a plan for the big picture. In some form, it includes writing.

Claire enters Northwestern University as a freshman for the 2025-26 academic year (courtesy Claire Coffey)

“I love telling human-interest stories,” Coffey says. “I like to focus on long-form, community-centric stories. I would love to cover seniors and explore as America becomes an older society, as people age more, how are we taking care of our seniors? How are they getting, or not getting, the support they need, and why?”

There is a “Medill on the Hill” program that allows some Northwestern student journalists to cover politics in Washington D.C. Another program allows for investigative reporting on Northwestern’s Chicago campus. There is a world of possibilities. Rest assured that Claire Coffey will make the most of them.

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