Well, it’s been fun.
As a feature writer, I’m cringing — that’s certainly not my best lede, but it’s a truthful one.
My tenure at The Daily Mississippian has been a lot of things. It’s been rewarding, challenging, confusing, painful and meaningful, but I can’t lie — most of all, it’s been fun.
I have had fun these past four years painting the colors of this town, of this state, of this university with ink on print, with maybe a few too many em dashes. It’s been fun spending late nights at the newspaper with the people I respect the most on this campus, sharing old coffee and awful jokes on the black futon our entire staff has slept on at some point. It’s been fun seeing the face of our beloved newspaper advisor, Ms. Pat, light up when she picks up a really good paper.
And it has been more than fun, satisfying, even, getting to test the extent of the power of my pen with articles about the Associated Student Body, about Oxford’s mayor, about you, about me, about us.
For the past four years, I have held this place accountable for what it does to people and what it does for people, and you all have bitten back. What you think about what we write has been yelled in tweets and whispered in direct messages on Twitter, said to my face on the Square with vodka soda breath.
But it’s still been fun — at least you read it.
I have fallen in love with this Mississippi town and all of its people, and I have loved every minute of writing about you. I wrote about the limitless hope and strength of this town’s queer community, and I wrote about the resiliency and heartbreak of the black and brown people who give their everything to this campus, day in and day out.
Even if Billy Bob on Facebook didn’t like it, I wrote about the people who make this complicated place what it is and the people who are making it better, and those stories will make me miss this place so much as I take on a new adventure up north.
I came to this university complacent and ignorant, with a head so big it wobbled on my shoulders. In May, I’ll walk across the stage with a considerably shrunken head and a little worse for the wear but sure of myself and sure of my principles and sure of the way this staff has revitalized this campus.
I’ll walk, knowing that I have lost a sisterhood that didn’t value me and gained a family in the loyal friends that I have worked alongside. It’s been nothing short of an honor to work at the DM — thank you for letting me love this state, my home, more deeply than ever.
A new staff is taking the helm of this historical paper. Walking by Bishop Hall at night, you will continue to notice the lights on at the Student Media Center where editors and reporters are frantically trying to write that sharp headline, type that concise story, shoot that perfect picture — all for you.
Because you, Ole Miss, deserve it. There is no campus, no student body in this nation that deserves it more than you do.
