So many people…

It was in Nina Flournoy’s Strategic Writing I class in the fall of 2003, when I first made my way up to the Daily Campus office. I had no idea how many more countless hours I would spend on the third floor of Hughes-Trigg. My first article was a feature about the redesign of the football helmets in the spring of 2003, and I’ll never forget the feeling of excitement after seeing my story with an amazing graphics package on the front page of news. Over 80 articles later, I sit and think back over the two and a half years of helping so many of Professor Flournoy’s students in knowing what it feels like to be published.

But all the articles aside, what first comes to mind are all the people who I have gotten to know while serving as an editor: professors, administrators, members of the Dallas media, and most of all, people I now consider my close friends. Some of the names that come to mind include Gerry York, director of Heritage Hall in Ford Stadium; Guy Bellaver, former DC columnist; Hill Fischer, of “Fashion with Fischer” fame; Trent Redden and his “Red Zone” column; and, of course, Amber Campisi, whose coverage always provoked letters to the editor. Thank you all for helping fill the pages of our publication.

I would also like to thank my co-workers who have spent tireless nights proofreading the flats, sometimes well after deadline. Thank you Jeremy Roebuck, Emily Powell, and Brandon Hampton for all the extra effort you instilled in your staffs. Thank you Dick Lytle for the outside work you do. Thank you to Mark Norris, Jessica Savage, Nate Regan, Caroline Lawson and Mike Jett for making my last semester less stressful. I hope that your newspaper experience has been as good as mine, keep working hard to make this publication exciting, and helpful to the student body.

And I’d also like to thank Clark Castle, the Editor-in-Chief of our paper. Most people haven’t seen the work that you have put into the paper. You have definitely taken the position of Editor-in-Chief from something that people simply do, to a true leadership position on this campus, on par with anything done by Program Councilors, and Student Governors. You have also continued to help me become a better journalist; from the days we were only writing conservative letters to a liberal DC editor. This campus owes you, not only covering Tate Lectures, but also for uncovering phantom professors.

Lastly, thank you SMU. From the day I stepped on campus, I fell in love with the shady walkways, redbrick buildings and the people. People will always stereotype the campus culture because of the Burberry bags and popped collars. But the hospitality that people have shown towards me is unmatched.

Go Mustangs!