I remember when I was a freshman and I took Introduction to Journalism. It was a great experience. Shari Chumley showed me how cool and interesting the whole journalism world was, and I knew I would like to be part of it.

My first year of being on The Hi-Times staff was probably the most interesting. Being a part of the first staff in Tupelo High School’s history to win Best High School Newspaper in Mississippi was fantastic. It showed me how the hard work we went through during that year paid off, and how excellence of a publication we are.

My junior year was the first year I had any type of leadership role on the newspaper staff  and actually worked on something else other than just writing articles. It was that year that I found out that I actually liked to design the paper. It was a new experience for me. I will say that I was not the best when I first started. It was a struggle to actually learn all the kinks that are made of Adobe InDesign. InDesign is one of the most complicated programs ever. I have to super careful with how I click things, which is one of the most annoying parts of the whole thing, but I can do it now.    

I also learned that it is very difficult to design anything without the cooperation of others and having a staff that is willing to help when I need to get pages filled. I am going to take everything that I learned from being a part of this amazing group of people and I will also miss them so much as well.