Two classes today. Stayed late to go over some things with a small handful of students before their final. Drove off to get the sandwiches I always buy at the end of the year: Roly Poly. Got stuck in traffic and when I got back on campus the end-of-the-year party was already underway.
We had two staffs in there this year, the outgoing and part of the incoming. It was a lively, chatty, fun affair. The has-beens told the up-and-comers secrets about the job. Some of them lingered and told stories about what it meant to them, which was lovely.
I walked them all to the door, and gave each one a little letter. Each one was different, but each said how thankful I was of the effort they’ve put in, how proud I was of the work they’ve done. I hope they are proud too.
And then there were just a few of us. And I realized that, with Sydney graduating, our newsroom lost its institutional memory of Purvis, the rock:
The short version: On our way to a conference last year, Clayton, the then-sports editor, was reading interesting facts about every town in Mississippi we passed. Our favorite was Purvis, basically because of everything he read aloud from Wikipedia.
So on the way back from Purvis, and getting a bit punchy, we stopped there for this picture, Sydney, then-news editor, Zach, then-editor-in-chief and Clayton, who was the sports editor. Because we were punchy we dug up that chunk of asphalt from off the side of the road. Clayton or Sydney one named it Purvis. It now sits in a place of honor in the Crimson newsroom.
And now they’re all off into the great wide world.
A little bit later Sydney walked out of the door. She was in the hallway looking in and three members of next year’s staff were in the newsroom were looking out. There was a joke or two and a bye and then she walked down the hall, through the fire door, down the steps and she was gone.
I closed the newsroom door. Emily, the new editor-in-chief who served so ably as the news editor this year, looked at me and we both took half-a-moment to compose ourselves.
And I thought, you get into all of this — the late nights, the too-cold office, dealing with people who don’t understand what you’re trying to do, thanking people who do understand, the good leads, bad headlines, working through stories you don’t care about, wondering each week what they left uncovered — you do all of this because you figure that you have something to offer students. It is something important, you figure, just as it was important when you learned the same things when you were in their place. It is important because the work they’ll one day do with it is important and civic and useful. And so, then, you are useful and maybe formative. And that is worth every 2 a.m. that you find yourself still in a cold office, because you are there for them. Only when you watch them go do you really realize what they did for you.
All of that was in my head as I cleared my eyes and watched Emily clear her eyes and then launched into the first meeting with the new staff.
I’ve taken to looking at this newsroom as both a laboratory and, these last two years, as a spectrum. Sydney and Zach and Katie before them started something these people will continue and improve upon. I have high hopes for that because here’s another group of young people who are sitting in the newsroom at 7 p.m. on the Wednesday of the last week of class.
That’s passion.
