Journalism is in his soul.
Stephen Green, CJE, is the adviser to Caney Creek Student Media that produces the CCHSCompass.com news website, Creek Compass print newspaper, and The Creek yearbook. He currently teaches digital media – journalism, and graphic design & illustration – advanced publications. He has taught photojournalism, advanced photojournalism, digital design and media production, journalism 1, and advanced journalism. Additionally, he is a lecturer of mass communication at Sam Houston State University.
His publications have won state awards from the Interscholastic League Press Conference and Texas Association of Journalism Educators, as well as national recognition and awards from the Columbia Scholastic Press Association, the Association of Texas Photography Instructors, and School Newspapers Online. The Creek yearbook has been included in Balfour’s Yearbook Yearbook, top 10% of all Balfour yearbooks, since 2013.
While adviser, he has personally won awards from ILPC as the back-to-back state champion in the adviser’s contest for subjective writing, and placed third in subjective writing in 2020. He has also placed in the Association of Texas Photography Instructors contest for photo story. He has presented, critiqued and judged photography, writing and design on the local, state and national level.
He was recognized by the Journalism Educators Association as a Certified Journalism Educator in 2020. He was honored with the TAJE Pathfinder Award recognizing high-achieving advisers within their first five years advising, as well as from the JEA with its Rising Star Award that recognizes the same qualities.
At Caney Creek, he is also the UIL Academic coordinator and assistant debate coach, specializing in individual speaking events and Lincoln-Douglas debate. He also sits as the fine arts department representative on the site-based decision making committee, overseeing a subcommittee on remote-learning practices. In 2020, he was recognized as the Caney Creek Teacher Achieving Excellence from the Conroe ISD Board of Trustees. In 2024, he was recognized as the Caney Creek High School, Conroe ISD, and ESC Region 6 Teacher of the Year.
Prior to teaching, he was the city editor for The (Conroe) Courier where he covered education and local government, as well as producing feature and investigative reports, one of which appeared on John Oliver Tonight. He also was the education and government reporter for The Huntsville Item where he earned the TCTA Silver Apple Media Award for education reporting and several awards for feature writing, feature video, and opinion writing. He was also awarded several accolades during his tenure at his college newspaper, The Houstonian, for investigative journalism, feature writing, opinion writing, breaking news reporting, newspaper design, broadcast announcing, documentary filmmaking, and more.
He has a bachelor’s degree in political science and a bachelor’s degree in multiplatform journalism from Sam Houston State University in 2014. While at SHSU, he worked at The Houstonian, the school newspaper, for four years including two years as editor-in-chief, one as news and opinions editor, one as a senior reporter and web editor. He also worked at the college TV news station KSHU as a news anchor and KSHU The Kat radio station for a year as a DJ hosting the show “Weekly Weird News”.
He earned a master’s in journalism and mass communication with a concentration in scholastic media education from Kent State University in 2021. His professional project was titled “Collaborative Learning in Scholastic Media Classrooms.”
At college, he had the honor of interviewing legendary CBS anchor and SHSU alumnus Dan Rather, working at the newspaper during its 100th anniversary, and traveling to Beirut, Lebanon, as part of the Center for Journalism and Democracy’s mission, led by former CNN anchor Kelli Arena, to educate journalists in budding regions about socially responsible journalism, plus some. He graduated recognized as the Top Multiplatform Graduate chosen by the college faculty.
At the state level while in college, he was the secretary and two-term president of the Texas Intercollegiate Press Association and led an effort to formalize the policies that govern the student officers and presented lectures at conferences to his peers on journalism topics such as story development and gathering story ideas.
In high school, he was the two-time editor-in-chief of his high school newspaper, The Bear Facts, getting the ball rolling to modernize the program, as well as a member of The Cypress Log yearbook staff as the featured editor. He was a regional qualifier in UIL Academics in news writing and a multi-award-winner in feature writing, headline writing, and editorial writing. Since then, he has been a regional and local contest director for UIL journalism contests. He also was twice named KFDM’s Student Journalist of the Year during that time period.
