Growing up in Shreveport, La., De’Eric Henry spent several years trying to find his passion.

At 12 he started a dance group with friends.

In his late teens, he thought about a job either in the military or with computers.

However, upon entering Grambling State University, he decided to pursue mass communications.

"For a while, I didn’t know what my passion was. I was a mass communications major, but I had no idea what I really wanted to do,” Henry said. “After an internship one summer I realized that my creative niche, along with my personality, could sometimes be portrayed in the form of design."

Now a senior, Henry has involved both of his creative outlets at the school, one as the presentation editor and page designer for The Gramblinite, Grambling’s campus newspaper, and the other as a performing arts minor through dance – concentrating in jazz, ballet, and modern.

"I’ve always been a dancer, but I knew it was not a promising career,” Henry said. “That’s why I decided to take mass communications, because I love to talk and am nosy."

As evidence of his workmanship, he won two second-place awards, both for front page design, one at the Historically Black Colleges and Universities National Newspaper Conference and the other from the Louisiana Press Association.

After the New York Times Student Journalism Institute, Henry will work as an intern at the News-Star in Monroe, La., for a second summer. He will be doing page design and copy editing.

ELIZABETH BERTRAND