An Editor’s Farewell

The Johnny Green has been my home from the moment I entered 9th grade. Back then, I was unsure of myself. I had no concrete goals for my future, and the only career I had ever considered was to become a “famous author” and make my millions writing my words at my own leisure. Now although this seems silly looking back on it, how many freshmen do you know that have their life goals planned out in a realistic and achievable fashion?

When I first met Mr. Hay, I was thoroughly annoyed that he was assigning us a summer reading project for the warm months before school started. I waited until the last week before school began, read about half the book (mainly focusing on the brief summary on the back) and did my assignment just in the nick of time before the first bell rang that September morning. Believe it or not, I got an excellent grade on the project. Throughout high school, I continued to fool many of my English teachers, especially once I learned what Spark Notes were. But I learned something else from this experience. I learned that I had a better knack for writing than I thought I did.

I attended my first Johnny Green meeting after realizing that Mr. Hay wasn’t just a bad guy who made 9th graders read books during their summer vacations. I was immediately intimidated by every person in the classroom and thought about never showing my face there again. Hanging on the wall in the back of Mr. Hay’s classroom was a photo of The Newhouse School of Communications, a college inside Syracuse University and also one of the most highly ranked schools for journalism. On the poster was a badly draw stick figure, hanging out of one of the big glass windows. It said, “Work hard and you can make it here!” I had decided. That was my goal. I was going to work hard and make it into The Newhouse School of Communications. My first dinky little article was published and I never looked back.

Through the years I explored many aspects of a journalism career, focusing mainly on photography. In 10th grade, I became the Photo/ Illustrating editor for the paper. I had finally found my niche. No longer intimidated because of my editor title, I found I could do a lot more of the work I truly enjoyed doing.

My junior year, I shared to managing editor position with senior Omneya Aboushanab. I had finally found someone with the same dream as me; to get into Newhouse. As my Junior year concluded, Omneya accomplished her goal and set off to Syracuse. And now, as my senior year is coming to a close, I will be joining Omneya in the fall, accomplishing my goal of being accepted into Newhouse.

Now that the end of my high school career is near, a thank you is much overdo. There have obviously been hundreds of people who had an impact on my 13 years here at Weedsport but there is one person in particular that I can attribute all my success to. Mr. Hay has never once let me down. His support and vision for my own future helped keep me on track through four years of high school. There aren’t enough words to describe how much I owe him so I’m just going to promise to never slack off like I did on his first assignment again.

This will be my final article for my beloved Johnny Green and as they say, “I’m off to bigger and better things.” But as far as the Johnny Green family is concerned, there is nothing better.