I’m going to be completely honest. Before this year, I rarely read the Paw Print. In fact, I had no clue it existed before my junior year. That year, I had briefly looked over three issues, and truthfully that’s only because my friends or I were included in two of those issues.
The other issue I read was last year’s senior issue. I was in AP Stats, had already mentally checked out, and wanted to do anything except Mrs. Tierney’s study guides. I read all the senior columns and, as well written as they were, one point stuck out to me. The winner of something to the effect of the “top editor” award had misspelled lens as lense. Yikes.
I of course appreciated the irony in the top editor having such an erroneous error in their his or her grammar, and brought it up to Mrs. Tannehill. Instead of simply laughing and moving on, Mrs. Tannehill suggested that I join the journalism class. Not wanting to actually enter it in my schedule, I agreed to simply come into class 9th period, since I had a study hall scheduled then.
The first day of school, I walked into Mrs. Tannehill’s class and asked for a pass for 9th period. She had honestly forgotten about the whole proposition, but by the third day of school I had made my way into class. After I wrote two news stories on political topics, we agreed to give me the unofficial title of the Paw Print “Chief Political Correspondent,” and soon, it became an inside joke to casually mention that I was “not even in this class.” It felt like I had really joined the class.
The peak of my short journalistic career was the best friends review of Napoleon with Parker, which is truly a masterpiece. In fact, any one who hasn’t read that yet should close this issue right now and go read that.
Throughout the year, I have been given the chance to write a number of news and feature articles. Some of these chances I … didn’t take. What can I say? I’m bad with deadlines. Sorry, Kenzie.
At the beginning of the year, I essentially spent class procrastinating and complaining about Mr. Tomecko not giving me participation points, but as the year moved on I made significant progress towards … still procrastinating, but also playing Roblox and the NYT Connections and Mini Crossword. Maddie, Morgan, and I (and sometimes Mallory and Courtney, don’t feel left out) would walk into class everyday and play Connections and the Mini Crossword, even when I truthfully should have been writing.
At other times, we would play Fashion Famous on Roblox. Needless to say, I would consistently lose. Nevertheless, it was still fun, though not nearly as fun as Natural Disasters on Roblox.
Although most of the people in journalism I would have never interacted with before, I can honestly say that I would consider anyone in the class a friend of mine. Even when I went to the Trick-or-Treat Trail completely separate from the Paw Print, everyone was sure to greet me and hand me coupons (thanks Hadley!).
A couple things stand out to me from my short, yet very impactful, forte into journalism. The first observation made in my reflection of the past year is the significant impact of small actions or traits. Anyone who knows me knows one thing chiefly, and that is my complete lack of ability to stay on task (and yeah my ego too, but I already talked about that at top 25). This small character trait is what led me to reading the Paw Print last year. My weird obsession with grammar prompted me to even care about lens being misspelled. My constant need for approval from authority prompted me to bring this up to Mrs. Tannehill. Without the sum of these small characteristics of mine, I would have never joined journalism or had the chance to make so many new friends and memories. The impact of such small choices and traits is astounding.
The second thing that stood out to me was the ability of so many individuals with such varying interests and skills to come together to create a finished product. Without the differing skills of all of the writers, editors, and designers on the Paw Print staff, no issue would ever be finished.
Thirdly, I noted that I had never truly taken the time to befriend really anyone in the class. Despite spending four years of high school together, I had rarely spoken with most of my peers. The only advice I could give to anyone in earlier years would be to socialize more. Reach out, even to people who you don’t think you’d be friends with. For some reason, the impending doom of graduation seems to prompt all of the seniors to befriend each other. This final year, everyone realizes that people outside their core friend group are just as awesome as their long time friends. To anyone reading this who is not a senior, break the chain. Talk to people. Make plans. Have fun. Play Roblox.
I’m sure if I thought long enough I could come up with more observations and reflections on my time in journalism, but introspection is not my strong suit. To end, I would like to thank a number of people. To the staff of the Paw Print, to Mrs. Tannehill, to anyone who I have interviewed, and to the faithful readers of the Paw Print: Thank you.