Creativity abounds within the MIHS Pegasus realm

Published 5:30 pm Tuesday, October 21, 2025

A world of creativity awaits students wishing to take a step inside.

Carrie Thompson tries to turn her class into an oasis where students can amplify their voices by writing about whatever’s on their minds.

The Mercer Island High School (MIHS) and Crest Learning Center English teacher also spends her days as the adviser of the school’s Pegasus creative arts magazine, which features students’ stellar writing, art, photography and design work and has received several national awards over the last few years.

Recently, Pegasus Club members, mixed with students enrolled in Thompson’s creative writing and publishing class, garnered a gold medal rating from the Columbia Scholastic Press Association for standout work in the visual, verbal and essentials (design concept, theme, layout and more) categories. The 96-page zine received a score of 970 out of 1,000 for the publishing year of 2024-25.

In their overall assessment of Pegasus, the critique judges beamed that “with rich, diverse content that is both creative and entertaining, Pegasus showcases the singular talent of Mercer students.”

Pegasus has been on a roll as evidenced by its first-class ratings by the Recognizing Excellence in Art and Literary Magazines (REALM) for 2021-22 and REALM and National Scholastic Press Association (two levels of distinction) for 2022-23.

“I tell them it’s their work, it’s their magazine, it’s their voice. I consider myself like the publisher,” said Thompson, who’s had some of her essays published in national and local magazines. “I just think that the progression of quality in the work and the growth in the class kind of go hand in hand. And that’s the thing that I’m proudest of (with) these kids is that this is really their stuff.”

Students also get a step ahead in their future by earning college in the high school credit through North Seattle College for their participation in the class.

Pegasus, which comes out yearly, is completely student-run. After choosing the theme, editing the pieces and handling the layout, the students send the final product to the Northwest Regional Data Center in Everett to be printed.

MIHS class of 2025 graduate Liam Chester knows that process well as he was the Pegasus editor in chief for four years.

“The magazine last year was a culmination of his dedication and passion to build a legacy, which he truly has,” Thompson said.

Added Chester, who currently attends the University of Washington Seattle, about the Pegasus honors: “It’s enormously validating as I’m sure you can imagine. It’s a lot of hard work over the course of a year. Having someone who’s never met you, has no bias, has no personal stake in it, as it were, say, from the other side of the country, like, ‘Yeah, that was a good thing you did. That was a contribution to the arts. That was an impressive accomplishment,’ well, it feels really good.”

Senior Cordelia Tangeman was Pegasus’s lead editor last year and is thrilled to be editor in chief this time out.

“I think supporting the arts is super important, and I really enjoyed my experience last year,” she said. “We had some long nights. We worked very hard towards the end of the year to put together a magazine that all of us could be proud of.”

In the writing realm, Tangeman penned two pieces, “How to Mourn a Country” and “Callings” in last year’s zine.

Tangeman described the catharsis she experienced while digging down deep to write “How to Mourn a Country”: “The results of the (2024) election came out, and I was in shock and completely angry and also just had this incredible depression I have never experienced and hope never to experience after that. I just had so much in me that I needed to get it out on paper, so ‘How to Mourn a Country’ is absolutely a culmination of that.”

As freshmen last year, Clove Fields was Pegasus’s lead asset designer and Kinsey Radovich, Auri Knight and Tessa Baumgarten served as asset designers. Baumgarten and then-freshman Zoey Allen were editors and both also had photographs published in the zine.

“I like to figure out how to adapt the themes into assets and the cover, and it’s really fun to work with everybody,” Fields said.

Added Radovich: “I really enjoy finding the themes each year and working on things related to that and seeing how the whole project comes together.”

Throughout last year’s robust publication, readers can peruse essays and poems titled “The Climb,” “Hear Me Out,” “Child of Mother Earth” and more, along with eyeing photographs titled “Antiquity,” “Stadium Lights,” “Winged Knight” and more.

Knight noted that she likes being part of the Pegasus team, “and finding things to work on and feeling like I’m contributing to something.”

Allen loves being involved in art and said the finished product “looked really cool.”

It’s been a rewarding experience for Baumgarten during her time within the Pegasus orbit.

“I did a good variety of things in different areas, but I feel like seeing it all come together in one cohesive thing was really amazing,” she said. “Just being part of the group as a whole, it’s a really great collaborative environment.”

Check out Pegasus at: https://mihspegasus.org/print-editions/