An Introduction to Red Arrow Preps and Why I Left the Ledger

Hi. My name is Justin Scott.

Since I created the original Lowell Red Arrows Facebook page as a freshman at Lowell High School nearly 20 years ago, I’ve been deeply involved in telling the stories of Lowell High School and Lowell Area Schools. What started as a simple student-run page that reported out athletic scores anonymously grew quietly and steadily over time. Eventually, it became one of the largest high school athletics pages of its kind in the state.

In 2016, I began photographing Lowell athletics and school events, adding another layer to how those stories were told. Since then I’ve published over 200,000 high quality images of LAS events. My photos continue to be a huge help to the Lowell Yearbook and Red Arrow Report classes, which I provide to them at no cost.

Additionally, a several thousand hour project I took on was the Lowell High School athletics archive. Prior to this there was nearly no digital record for our sports team, which are now archived forever.

In 2019, I passed along the Lowell athletics social accounts officially over to the athletic department and accepted a sports role with the Lowell Ledger. It felt like a natural next step. I cared deeply about the paper, its history, and its role in the community.

My time at the Ledger was positive. I was proud of the coverage we provided and especially proud of the website I helped build, bringing the paper into the 21st century. It was designed to highlight student-athletes, performers, and programs through high quality images, shareable links that looked great, and podcasts partnered with Lowell Radio.

I campaigned extremely hard for the paper when our articles weren’t promoted by our partners, on social media trying to get people to subscribe, and working with my partners I had developed over the years to generate meaningful content.

Unforunately things changed in 2025, when the paper was acquired by a corporate entity across the state. To be clear, those Lowell people remaining at the Ledger are tremendous people, this is all about decisions made on the other side of the state.

Without warning, the website I had built was dismantled without telling me, and replaced with a corporate platform that was clunky, slow, and heavily pay walled. High-quality photos were automatically resized and degraded. Social sharing was broken or inconsistent. Articles that once traveled widely through the community lost their reach. Over time, it became clear that aggressive advertising would take priority over readability and user experience which has been the case at their other papers.

Just as importantly, the new platform eliminated or restricted features that mattered to me and to the community. There would be no room for podcasts, standings, results, archives, or the kind of dynamic school-focused coverage I believe Lowell deserves.

At that point, I knew I could no longer be part of something that worked against the very people it was supposed to serve while prioritizing corporate interests over local needs.

Red Arrow Preps exists because I still believe in local school coverage done the right way. It exists to highlight athletes, artists, musicians, students, and programs with respect, accuracy, and pride. It exists to preserve the history of Lowell schools while documenting what is happening right now. And it exists to put quality, clarity, and community first.

Thank you for being here and for supporting local school coverage.

Justin Scott,

Red Arrow Preps Founder