MIHS student wins America 250 Prize in NPR podcast challenge

Published 4:30 pm Wednesday, July 22, 2026

Special to the Reporter

Mercer Island High School (MIHS) rising sophomore Makayla Cheung has won the America 250 Prize in this year’s National Public Radio (NPR) Student Podcast Challenge.

The America 250 Prize is a new category in the NPR Student Podcast Challenge created to mark the 250th anniversary of the founding of the United States. The NPR judges listened for stories that looked back at historical events, took them to historic places, or explored what it means to be an American.

“My story is about the true meaning of what ‘The American Dream’ means through my dad’s life story,” said Makayla. “The story focuses on how sports gave him an opportunity to come to the U.S. and how his experience shaped his view of success and happiness in America.”

Makayla, and her father Raymond, spoke to NPR senior producer Lauren Migaki about her podcast.

NPR received more than 700 entries and Makayla was one of seven winners of the America 250 Prize from around the country. NPR profiled the winning entries.

“Huge congratulations to Makayla for producing such a wonderful portrait of her dad and his perseverance. The thought, love and attention to detail that Makayla put into ‘The American Dream’ was inspiring to see in action and it was a joy to watch her voice, storytelling and editing skills grow throughout the process of making this piece and throughout her time in Intro to Radio,” said MIHS broadcast media teacher Lauren Schechter.

“Throughout the production process, Makayla went through many different iterations of this story and was always asking herself, ‘How can I make this more engaging to the listener? How can I whittle down this lengthy interview with my dad and turn it into an under-seven-minute feature? How do I do this incredible story justice?’” continued Schechter.

The NPR Student Podcast Challenge started in 2018 asking students across the country to make a podcast, and to have a teacher, educator or parent submit it. Each year, NPR judges listen to every single podcast, with more than 20,000 podcasts submitted so far, and narrow them down to a list of finalists and honorable mentions.

Listen to Makayla’s winning podcast: https://soundcloud.com/makayla-cheung-313375816/the-american-dream-2