Jerry Greenfield: ‘Adventure of a Lifetime’ Working for School Newspaper

Jerry Greenfield grew up on the south shore of Long Island and with his friend, Ben Cohen, helped build Ben & Jerry’s into an ice cream and business marvel by making social responsibility and creative management strengths, rather than weaknesses. Greenfield now lives in Vermont and continues to be involved in promoting the social and environmental initiatives that Ben & Jerry’s undertakes. He is also vice president of the Ben & Jerry’s Foundation.

Question: What do you remember most about your high school experience?
Greenfield: I attended high school a long time ago, or should I say, a long, long time ago. I began in 1966 and graduated in 1969 from Calhoun High School in Merrick, New York. I was always a good student who followed all the rules. I never made trouble and studied diligently. My focus was on academics rather than on any outside activities, and I did very well in classes and with grades. However, I became aware that if I wanted to go to college, it would help my chances if I participated in activities beyond classwork. So, I signed up for a bunch of clubs, essentially so that I could check that box for my applications to college. As I recall, I signed up for French Club and Math Club. There were probably a couple of others as well, but the one that had a huge impact on me was joining the staff of “Hoofbeats,” the school newspaper. I didn’t have much interest in journalism or writing in general. I knew several of the other students who worked on the paper, so I thought it might be a fun thing to do. I had no idea what was in store.

Question: What was it about writing for “Hoofbeats” that had such an impact on you?
Greenfield: One of the things about writing for the school newspaper was that we exchanged copies of our newspaper with other high schools around the country. We barely paid attention to what we received from other schools, thinking as young people sometimes do, that whatever we were producing was likely far superior to anything we might be receiving. One afternoon after classes, a group of the Hoofbeats staff was gathered in the office we used. For entertainment, we picked up and perused some of the other high school papers we had received. We were taken by a copy of the school newspaper from Yazoo City, Mississippi. What grabbed our attention was their feature ‘Senior Spotlight.’ We were amused to see that the senior student who was spotlighted was the editor of their student newspaper. How could the newspaper feature its own editor? We immediately wrote a letter to the editor to register our outrage as fellow journalists.

Question: And how was that letter received?
Greenfield: Fortunately, Ruth, the editor of the Yazoo City High School newspaper, had a good sense of humor. We began a correspondence, and she invited us to visit her in Mississippi. She said we could even stay at her house. Several of us wanted to do it, and amazingly, two friends and I convinced our parents to give us brazen 17-year-olds permission to drive to Mississippi in one of the friend’s somewhat rickety Volkswagen Beetle.

Question: What was that trip like? How did visiting a completely different region of the country change your overall perspective as a teenager?
Greenfield: It turned out to be an adventure of a lifetime. On the drive, we only had one somewhat serious breakdown, and we were actually able to get it repaired. We experienced a part of the country we had never been exposed to, including being pulled over in the middle of the night by a humorless Mississippi State Trooper. In Yazoo City, we were treated very warmly, even though there was an initial suspicion from the proud Southerners of “Yankees” from up North. We ended up attending three days of school at Yazoo City High School. The school itself had very recently been racially integrated. We got to experience firsthand something we had only read about in the newspaper.

Question: It sounds like the trip was incredibly meaningful, and that you were able to take a lot from it as you moved forward in your life. Have you ever reflected on how it wouldn’t have been possible without your time on the Hoofbeats staff?
Greenfield: By the end of our week-long visit, we had become good friends with our host Ruth and a couple of other people. We have stayed in touch for years. The experience was so much more than anything we could have learned in class, and it was the result of a willingness to become involved in activities beyond the classroom. All of us involved continue to feel incredibly fortunate.