If I’ve never had the pleasure of meeting you, hi. How are you? Want to get to know me and my numerous haircuts over the last four years? Give me a Google.
But, chances are, if you’re reading this, you’re at least familiar with me and what I do, so maybe pause on pressing enter on that search.
As you might have guessed by this article’s headline, this is likely the last time I’ll appear under a Sunflower header.
Goodbye columns, while a popular tradition among graduating Sunflower staff, have always seemed incredibly daunting to me. How do you characterize four years that feel so random, disjointed and great at the same time? I should probably know as the writer of this, huh?
But I don’t. So let’s start at the beginning.
When I first joined The Sunflower as a freshman, I planned to work, but not too hard. I’d come off four years of high school yearbook, which had left me pretty burnt out. The idea of entering college as just a reporter and photographer — nothing else — sounded heavenly.
And I did that, for about seven months. Then, I got the itch to do more, which was really inevitable.
From May 2022 to now, I’ve served in various leadership positions at The Sunflower, from being the news editor huddled in a small upper-level room in Elliott Hall to the editor-in-chief in the building’s hard-to-find basement.
I’ve been able to report on issues impacting the people who make up our community. From covering protests in scorching heat to attending late-night Student Government meetings to ear-splitting basketball games, I’ve had the chance to plunge myself into nearly every sphere of campus.
I’ve also had the pleasure of wielding a red pen (more like the “suggesting changes” feature on Google Docs) to make stories just a little — or a lot — better. Working with new or experienced reporters to improve their stories has been one of the most nerdily fun tasks I’ve been able to do while at The Sunflower.
But the best parts of the job were when I got to write or edit stories that impacted our campus. Hearing people say the stories we report on matter is worth all the painstaking hours of planning, writing, editing and tracking down sources.
It’s part of what makes journalism and providing information to the public so rewarding.
Even when that praise was absent, though, I never doubted the importance of the work our staff has done and continues to do. Good journalism isn’t always going to make everyone happy, and, truly, if every story’s ultimate goal was to appease, would it be true journalism?
Serving and thriving under the guidance of past and current editors and, of course, The Sunflower’s adviser, Amy DeVault, have been invaluable to my time studying at Wichita State University.
Each year and each opportunity taught me more than I thought was possible to know. And each year brought a wave of graduating friends and new friendly faces.
To all the people I’ve had the pleasure of working with at The Sunflower: Thank you. And especially thank you for enduring my sea of red edits. Don’t ever stop asking questions and pushing for change.
