(Photo provided by Payton Tyler) Ohio Supreme Court Justice Jennifer Brunner, left, and Payton Tyler, right, pose for a photo together during the 2025 Summer Law and Trial Institute program.

NEWPORT – Payton Tyler has aspirations to become a criminal defense attorney upon completing law school.

Even though the 17-year-old junior has another year at Frontier High School remaining, Tyler has her eyes on the prize and plans in place for her academics in the coming years.

Born and raised in Newport, Tyler described herself as a very academic person and she enjoys taking classes. She enrolled full-time at Washington State Community College at the start of her junior year in the fall.

“I started taking College Credit Plus classes my freshman year,” Tyler said. “It depends which quarter it is, but right now I have one in-person (class) and multiple online.”

Through Washington State, Tyler is taking a biology lab as well as a biology lecture, which is online.

(Photo provided by Payton Tyler) Payton Tyler, left, and Summer Law and Trial Institute organizer Larry Hayman smile for a photo in 2025.

She said she’s also enrolled in online classes through Hocking College in Nelsonville and has been taking classes there since her freshman year.

“Some of the teachers at Frontier were registered to teach Hocking classes at Frontier, so that’s how I got started,” said Tyler. “I took Hocking classes through my teachers at Frontier and then I stuck with it and kept doing online classes on my own time.”

By the time Tyler graduates from high school, she will have an associate’s degree. She said she will continue on to a four-year college and from there she’ll pursue law school to become an attorney.

“I’ve always loved school,” she said. “So I have about seven or more years of college to do but I just started out by learning on my own.”

Tyler said she’s always been a huge fan of true crime shows and has a fascination with the courtroom.

(Photo provided by Payton Tyler) Janessa Ross, left, speaks to Columbus City Attorney Zach Klein, middle, and Payton Tyler, right, during a discussion about Washington County high schools in 2025.

When she isn’t in class or studying, Tyler participates in various law-related programs. She said after doing some research, she applied for the Summer Law and Trial Institute through Ohio University and attended last July.

“It’s a two-week program, and the first week is online .. the second week you go to the Athens campus and meet the Supreme Court,” she said. “You talk to law professors and people that are in the field, and you really get to immerse yourself.”

Tyler said the experience was amazing and provided her with a lot of insight. She said when she was doing research and looking into other careers, she always came back to law.

“I just always knew that I wanted to be an attorney,” said Tyler.

She said after the experience at OU, she definitely would be applying there for her undergraduate work, along with the University of Michigan and University of North Carolina.

(Photo provided by Payton Tyler) Members of the 2025 Summer Law and Trial Institute pose for a photo on the steps of the Patton College of Education at Ohio University.

To gain more experience before college, she joined the Ohio attorney general’s teen ambassador board this past fall.

“A group of juniors and seniors go and have meetings online and we go to Columbus every few months to meet with the Ohio attorney general, Dave Yost,” she said.

She said Yost chose to discuss human trafficking with the teens and they would bring the information back to their communities.

Tyler said the program has provided her with a lot of new information and she learns something new at each meeting.

“I’ve met some pretty remarkable people,” she said. “It’s definitely eye-opening to see all different people from around the state.”

(Photo provided by Payton Tyler) Payton Tyler smiles in a photo with her younger brother Easton Tyler recently.

Tyler said it was fun to meet people from bigger cities who attended high schools with hundreds of students in comparison to Frontier.

Even though she is enrolled in college classes and various programs, Tyler said she makes time to visit her fellow students and teachers at Frontier.

“I’m a very sentimental person,” she said. “I also love volunteering at the elementary school.”

Tyler said she’s looking into internships at various law offices for her senior year so she can shadow and gain more experience in courtrooms.

In her free time, she enjoys reading books. She’s recently been reading “The Handmaid’s Tale” by Margaret Atwood and said it was very interesting so far.

(Photo provided by Payton Tyler) Payton Tyler overlooks the ocean as the sun sets in the distance while on vacation at Jekyll Island in 2025.

“I used to be in band, but unfortunately that didn’t work with volleyball,” said Tyler. She said after two years on the team, she stopped and was deciding if she would play her senior year.

“I started band in fourth grade so I learned how to play the flute and I’ve been playing ever since, even though I’m not in band anymore,” she said.

Tyler said she also learned how to play the saxophone and played for about two years. She said she and a few band members wanted to start a jazz band but that only lasted a few months. Still, she’s continued to play and learn the saxophone.

With the end of the school year coming up, Tyler said she is very much looking forward to her summer plans.

“We are going to Georgia towards the end of the summer so that’s the number one thing I’m looking forward to,” she said. “I’m also looking forward to a summer with my friends.”

She said she plans to relax a lot this summer because soon she’ll be focused on college admissions and starting college after next summer.

“I’m super excited for the next chapter,” she said.