Depends, what does your friend want to learn?
Marketing, Web design, Front end design, SEO?
Throwing a couple more options:
1.- free: GitHub + Hugo template + Netlify
Easy to setup, plus it has an admin so he can update and blog as needed.
Cons: Hugo and Terminal are hard.
2.- Pick a nice paid Wordpress template, export it as a static website, plus Formspree for the Contact form.
Pro: Looks good, quick!
Cons: Maintain database somewhere
Alternative: paid HTML template
3.- Wordpress.com has a nice paid plan
Pro: you and your friend can forget about maintaining everything.
Cons: paid, depends on budget.
4.- Kirby is another nice alternative.
Just released a new version a couple days ago.
No database.