Ellie Shipp thinks the funniest thing she’s ever heard is “Why don’t scientists trust atoms? They make up everything.” With that, it’s no surprise that her favorite faculty member at Edina High School is AP English Language and Composition teacher Kristin Benson, whose daily jokes notoriously bring tears to the driest eyes.
As you might be able to ascertain from her intellectual and discerning sense of humor, Ellie serves as an excellent conversationalist for her fellow staff members, and it’s fairly common to find her on the couch having a thoughtful discussion on life’s purpose.
“She’s both interesting and interested,” managing editor Karissa Cheng said. “Talking to Ellie is always about something super niche, yet you always walk away with some universally relevant truth about life that you never considered before.”
Aside from being staff raconteur, Ellie loves to share her opinions through Zephyrus articles, including everything from her thoughts on “One Battle After Another” to her expert analysis of performative males. She joined Zephyrus her junior year after her friends from debate, respective managing editor and editor-in-chief Valerie Schmitt and Lynn-Clara Tun, gave her FOMO about being locked into Zephyrus flex all the time.
“I then found out they were lying about it the whole time and were actually just walking around the high school,” Ellie said.
Ellie serves as policy debate team captain and Student Senate secretary, also TAing for special education teacher Madison Akins, working as a summer camp counselor, and teaching swimming at Lifetime Fitness. Her intense dedication to civic activity makes her very sleepy during seventh period, and it will still torment her in college when she majors in political science and international studies at Macalester College.
To her friends, her diversity of extracurriculars and adjoining depth of commitment come as no surprise; Ellie is dedicated to doing the most for the activities she cares about. In fact, she describes herself as “the opposite of nonchalant.”
This competitive drive makes Ellie a very successful and devoted debater. One can always find her scrolling through Tabroom, the online debate tournament website, and she checks the debate team’s messaging platform Slack more frequently than her Messages app. She has many fond memories of high school debate, such as the Glenbrooks Speech and Debate Tournament in Chicago during her junior year.
“We had to wake up at 5 a.m., and I was really tired, so I had two Alanis, and I didn’t have breakfast,” she said. “I started to feel really sick, and I ended up vomiting outside my debate round, so my debate coach started running around trying to find orange juice to cancel out the caffeine.”
Although this might signal that you shouldn’t take her advice, Ellie says, “Do as I say, not as I do.”
For any incoming Zephyrus staff, Ellie has two words. “Be curious,” she said. “Starting out, it can seem like everyone else has it all figured out, but if you know one thing from Zephyrus, it’s that you can learn from your peers. Being curious about things can be fun.”
This piece was originally published in Zephyrus’ print edition on May 19, 2026
