Personal Narrative

“It's just a high school class, why do you care so much?” is a question that I am asked by my peers on a nearly daily basis. The idea that a high school student would willingly spend four out of seven school hours in the same classroom during his senior year is almost a foreign concept to some of my classmates. The answer is always simple and identical regardless of who asks. Journalism has always been an escape for me.

I was a 7th grader at Barnwell Middle School. Our second one-page newspaper came out Monday, October 8th, 2018, and I had the only story in it. I remember how excited I was to show all of my family that my story about a librarian's excitement about an upcoming book fair had been published as the only story in our school newspaper. My grandpa was my biggest supporter, and I was supposed to see him that weekend. I still remember him telling me how proud he was of me and that he knew that one day I would do great things anytime I would talk to him about school. I was so excited to show him my story  and hear him talk to me about all the things that he enjoyed about it. Unfortunately, I would never have the chance to do so.

I still remember exactly what I was doing that Monday night. I was finishing my math homework for Mrs. McGrail's class when I heard my dad on the phone crying. Naturally curious because I had never heard my dad cry, I investigated. I could immediately tell something was off. He would get off the phone and break the news to me in the easiest way he could. My grandpa had had a fatal heart attack. That had been my first big brush with loss and I didn't know how to take it, so I just shut off completely. Later that week, we attended his funeral. After the funeral, to keep his memory alive, I looked up his name to see what I could find on him. The first link that popped up was an obituary from a local newspaper. Nothing too grand, but just enough to catch my eye.

At that moment, I had one thought go through my mind. My grandfather was a private man so he was not exactly known by the whole town or anything, so why was this newspaper covering him? I now realize, as a journalist, that it is our job to cover everyone regardless of how active they are in their community. That day that newspaper did just that. My grandfather’s blurb in that newspaper meant the world to me. It made me feel as if he was seen by the world and that he would not just be forgotten.

That happy moment that a newspaper article gave me in my time of need made me realize that journalism is what I wanted to pursue. If I could make even one person feel the way that I felt that day, I would feel complete. Since then, I've had an interesting path to where I am today. I started in high school my freshman year writing little blurbs here and there for our newspaper with no real sense of direction. I knew I wanted to be an editor, so I applied and was one of the few sophomore editors ever in my program. Not only that, but I was the sports editor for our newspaper during my sophomore year. In my junior year, I was promoted to managing editor of all sports content in the program. Burned out on sports, I bet on myself and jumped over to the yearbook 2nd semester of my junior year where I became their copy editor. There I re-found my passion for feature writing and realized what got me so invested in journalism in the first place.

I would jump back to news my senior year when I became the Editor-in-Chief of our website FHNtoday.com. Since then, I have been sharing how crucial covering everyone in our community is to not only my staffers but to the future of our program. I visit our school's English classes explaining why everyone should give our program a shot at least once so they can feel the way I feel when they see people's reactions to themselves in our paper or website. I also visit middle schools in our district trying to get 8th graders excited about joining staff so they feel like they have a safe space within our journalism room on their first day of high school, just like I did. In recent years, I have even gone to elementary schools to teach students how to write journalistic stories. It always brings a smile to my face when they get super excited to write about people in their school.

Overall, I would say that without journalism, middle school Chase would not have had a glimmer of hope when he needed it most. Freshman Chase would not have felt as comfortable coming into high school since he would not have already had a safe space. Most importantly, current Chase would not have become the leader he is today and he, for sure, would not have been so passionate about a career path as I am about journalism now.