Before she was chasing breaking news, University of Maine senior Alexa Kennedy was hauling lobster traps off the coast of Maine, starting at just 8 years old on her family’s commercial boat in Steuben.
Long days on the water taught her how to read conditions, anticipate problems and adjust quickly when things didn’t go as planned. Often, no one else was around to help.
Those instincts carried over into her reporting.
“A lot of waiting,” Kennedy said. “I have to anticipate because things won’t always go as planned. I have to be prepared to take that challenge on and do a lot of fast-paced, quick thinking under pressure.”
At UMaine, a learner-centered university focused on real-world experience, Kennedy has translated that lobsterman grit into a professional edge.
She recently landed a full-time reporting role with ABC 7 and Fox 22 News in Bangor while completing her undergraduate degree as a political science major with minors in legal studies, international affairs and journalism.
“UMaine has been very good for me,” said Kennedy, who transferred to UMaine from Endicott College in Massachusetts. “I came to UMaine because I missed my home and there’s a lot of real and down-to-earth people who share my experience of having to work on top of school.”
Born and raised in Steuben, Kennedy has worked on her family’s commercial lobster boat alongside her brother since elementary school. Today, she balances that maritime heritage with the demands of reporting, often shifting between early mornings on the water and tight newsroom deadlines.
While she now works in a newsroom, her deep-rooted Downeast Maine perspective remains central to her storytelling. She still returns to the family boat whenever she can.
“In the summer, I try to come down once a week to go out on the boat with my brother and one of his best buddies who is also his new sternman,” Kennedy said. “Even though he is taking over my job on the deck and assisting with the process of catching lobsters, I still love to help. Because I get homesick, I could never stop being a fisherman.”
The same independence she developed on the water continues to guide her work in the field, where she often operates as a one-person reporting crew.
“The biggest challenge I’ve had in the newsroom is battling the equipment because I’m new to the camera and the editing software,” Kennedy said. “One time I turned my camera to do an interview, and my audio levels weren’t working, so I had to mess around with the camera and figure it out myself. I was trying to fix this crisis while also trying to interview someone.”
Her days reflect the pace and unpredictability of modern journalism.
“I get my story in the morning and sometimes they fall through and I’ve got to pivot at the last minute, but usually they’ll be fine and I’ve got to figure out setting up interviews,” Kennedy said. “I then have to go out and do those interviews, gather B-roll, come back and write it, do my voiceover and edit it all together by 5:45 p.m.”
Story by Alexa Rose Perocillo, news intern.
Contact: Marcus Wolf, 207.581.3721; marcus.wolf@maine.edu
