Eighteen-year-old Krissah Williams Thompson found her way down the smoky basement stairs, through the heavy side door plastered with paper and stepped into The Daily Texan basement days before her freshman year began.

Thompson, a Plan II and journalism major from the Houston area, signed up to try out as a reporter. Little did she know, it was just the beginning of her journalism career.

“It was such a rush to be covering a community of 50,000 people while still learning the profession,” said Thompson, who writes features for The Washington Post. “It made me fall in love with journalism even more.”

Thompson, who writes for the Post’s Style section, covers first lady Michelle Obama, race and civil rights issues. After a Post reporting internship in 2001, she went on to cover business, elections and other issues, including traveling nationwide to interview voters during the 2008 presidential campaign.

Thompson knew at an early age that she wanted to be a journalist. The Texan helped guide and shape her interest in the profession.

“I was hooked,” she said. “It was such a wonderful introduction to working in a newsroom.”

Thompson took the valuable skills earned from countless days and nights writing and editing the Texan to the nation’s capital to work for one of the top daily newspapers in the nation.

The opportunity to spotlight important issues in relation to Michelle Obama offered a new challenge for Thompson.

“Politics can be a tough beat for storytelling,” Thompson said. “This beat was different, a significant challenge.”

In 2012, the Post launched a series on black women, asking the group about a host of issues through a national poll conducted by the Post and Kaiser Family Foundation.

Storytelling through these features and other profiles drove her passion for journalism.

“It gave me a first taste and interest in projects,” she said.

One project involved spending six months with a source to feature the explosive growth of Latino businesses. She wrote about a Guatemalan immigrant’s path to open a restaurant. The story, “Tenacity Drives Immigrant’s Dream,” won a feature writing award in 2006 from the National Association of Hispanic Journalists.

Back at the Texan, Thompson got her first taste for projects her junior year through a series on diversity and race on campus. It included a series of profiles of individuals from different communities. “Race at UT” sparked debate on campus on the important issue.

“Part of my interest in journalism has been to tap voices that aren’t necessarily always heard,” Thompson said. “The Texan gave me an early opportunity to do so.”

She also interned for the Austin American-Statesman on the business desk and was a Dow Jones Newspaper Fund business reporting intern for the Houston Chronicle. She worked as assistant managing editor, associate editor and reporter for the Texan. After her internship at the Post, she worked there part time until she obtained a Master’s in Journalism from the University of Maryland.

Thompson now lives in Maryland with her husband, Danny, and their son Jayden, 10, and their daughter Viviana, 1. Follow Thompason on Twitter @krissah30.