I joined The Panther Press staff halfway through junior year. I never imagined I would be winning several awards for my journalism.

When COVID took over my life, writing was my refuge. I was a huge reader for years, and loved to write and craft my own stories. I was a private school kid, starting at Strath Haven in seventh grade, and the world of public school was a huge change. 

As the years went on, and I got accustomed to homework and my extracurriculars, writing wasn’t a hobby anymore; it was a requirement. I abandoned my short stories for essays, my novels for busy work. 

It wasn’t until junior year that my friend, Mia Fagone, told me I should consider joining The Panther Press. Many of my friends were already on the staff, and in the second semester of junior year, I decided to join.

Being thrust into the world of journalism like that is a wild experience; talking about deadlines, interviews, and potential stories was a world I was completely unfamiliar with. I wrote my first article, about AI’s influence on art, and never looked back.

Being a journalist awakened something in me that I haven’t experienced in a long time. This writing didn’t feel like a chore; I was instead writing for fun again. The Panther Press brought back a passion I had completely forgotten about. 

I learned so many things about myself as my writing skills began to grow again. I realized that I loved journalism, and I loved even more that I felt that my, and the rest of the staff’s, reporting was actually incredibly important in the school community. 

Journalism also gave me a chance to communicate directly with my peers in a way I had never experienced before. I felt like my writing finally had a purpose, and that people actually cared about what I had to say. That kind of presence in the kind of student body we have is so important to me. 

I felt that my reporting could give others the chance to speak through me, and I would act as their translator. That kind of power I was never given in my academic writing, and The Panther Press just ignited this spark in me that I didn’t even know I had. 

Now that I’m going to college and I’m going to be in a completely different environment, I can’t wait to keep reporting and keep improving as a writer. Even if journalism doesn’t remain a huge part of my life, the lessons I learned about my writing through it will always stay with me, through every academic or passionate pursuit of writing.

Thank you, Panther Press, and thanks, Mia Fagone, for pushing me to join.