A Letter From Your new Forge Co-Editors-in-Chief

Natalie Macfarlane and Amelie Gridley

May 1, 2026

Picture of the new co-editors-in-chief as children. (Left: Amelie Gridley. Right: Natalie MacFarlane.) Image credit: Amelie Gridley and Natalie Macfarlane

Dear Forge readers,

We are so excited to be your 2026-’27 co-editors-in-chief! For the closing of this school year, we are committed to making The Forge a space for everyone at SBHS and in the broader SB community to enjoy and to learn.

We both joined The Forge in our sophomore year as staff writers, after taking JOUR 101 our freshman year, and since then, have built a community we are proud to have our names on. Every Forge edition is a reflection of how much we have grown and how much we will continue to grow as writers, leaders, and students. We hope The Forge can become a consistent community in everyone’s life on campus, for information, but also for a laugh.

Every month, we put weeks of effort into curating an issue that will represent all identities that are present on campus. As a high school paper, we can tell the stories that may go untold or unacknowledged.

Since we are an editor-in-chief team this year, we are grateful to have greater mobility to reach further crevices of the school, students, new sources, and grow our paper’s reach. We have also been given the opportunity to be your acting editors-in-chief beginning earlier this year in March, providing us with extra time to build The Forge for the coming years and expand it into something newer and better.

Every EIC comes into The Forge with a different vision. We’ve had more opinionated or editorial chiefs, we’ve had more student-centered chiefs, but we hope to bring a diverse mix of everything and anything on the campus to all of our readers. We met in seventh grade and have been best friends since. The Forge feels like a mark we can leave behind as a unit from our time at SBHS. We hope that over the next year, whether you’re a consistent Forge reader or accidentally picked it up, we reach you in some way and bring a story you care about alive.

Go Dons! See you in the next issue!

From your Pretty Pickles,

Griddy and Mac

Letter from the Editor

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About the Contributors

Natalie Macfarlane, Editor in Chief

Natalie Macfarlane is a Junior at Santa Barbara High School. This is her second year on The Forge, starting as a staff writer, and she is now the Arts and Entertainment Editor. She especially enjoys covering the Santa Barbara International Film Festival, or SBIFF, and meeting new people through journalism. She is a part of the Girls Varsity Tennis Team and works two jobs outside of school. She aspires to make an impact around her community and continue to grow as a person. Natalie is a natural-born leader who is excited to continue to learn and write.

Amelie Gridley, Editor in Chief

Amelie Gridley is a junior at Santa Barbara High School. She has been on The Forge for two years, starting at the Journalism 101 Class, became staff writer in her sophomore year, and advancing to becoming the student section editor her junior year. Amelie is a program instructor at the Grace Fisher Foundation, a junior facilitator at Peer Buddies, and a youth advocacy member at YouthWell. Amelie has been a dancer for 11 years and is the treasurer of SBHS’s dance team, the Donettes. She is a driven and motivated student who is passionate about psychology and her writing. Her favorite articles to write are news.