It’s almost 7 p.m. on The Daily Beacon’s last work day. Three hours until our deadline with the printing presses at the Knoxville News Sentinel. Three hours until my last Daily Beacon article goes to print. Three hours until I will leave my black, high-backed editor-in-chief chair and turn the lights off in Room 9 of the Communications Building for the last time.
Next year, another editor-in-chief will sit in that chair, will lead a staff of more than 50 in putting together a student newspaper, will experience the same mixture of pride and passion when she holds the first issue of the semester in her hands. Every year, another staff will take the previous one’s place. They will cover breaking news and struggle to meet deadlines and will never be sure that students actually care about what they’re doing. They’ll keep doing it anyway, like we did, because they love it and they care about those transient pieces of paper more than schoolwork or free time.
They’ll party together. Maybe in the Fort, like we did. Near the corner of Forest and 13th, where we congregated at least once a month at Cortney’s house. It was there that 2013-14 Editor-in-Chief R.J. Vogt handed me my first beer (a Bud Light) and I felt welcomed into the fold of the Beacon. There, the staff scribbled our names in permanent marker on the white walls of her living room, marking ourselves as having been there, as having worked together to make something that meant something. The amount of names multiplied each month, spreading to cover three walls — the names of coworkers and friends and random strangers, a collage of people wishing they could stay forever.
We can’t stay, of course. The idea is ridiculous — we all want to graduate and go off to new and exciting places, to new and exciting opportunities. But how could I possibly leave?
How could I leave behind an office full of people I have spent the past year growing with? The people I’ve driven to Cookout and pulled all-nighters with? The people I’ve cried with and laughed with and been angry with and will miss so much it’s difficult to think about?
I’m ready to graduate from the University of Tennessee, to strike out on my own and make it in journalism. But I don’t think I’ll ever really leave the Beacon, that almost windowless office that could double as a bomb shelter.
On our office walls are a different kind of collage than the walls at Cortney’s. They are layered with brightly colored posters and old records and flyers for concerts long past. They are the accumulation of two years of staffers decorating with the things they loved, creating a home for ourselves here.
I look at my contributions: A Vampire Weekend album cover, a poster for the Clint Eastwood movie “The Good, The Bad and The Ugly.” One night last year, I ambitiously printed 30 copies of a photo of Adam Levine’s face. One remains — still stuck to the ceiling above the entryway. A weird collection of things I’m afraid to take with me when I clean out my desk.
Elsewhere on the wall are our favorite Beacons from the past year. They consist of offerings from our fall broadsheet format — front page stories about hunch punch and the Red Zone and the Medal of Honor, all of which, coincidentally, are now award-winning. On the adjacent wall are the best of our new tabloid issues — bright, vivid, magazine-like covers that allowed our design staff to stretch more creatively than ever before.
We’ve done great work this year, and I could not be more proud of this staff and this paper that has made me the writer and reporter I am now. But when I think back to the Beacon, I won’t remember the stories I wrote or people I talked to or photos I took.
I’ll remember drawing a mustache on Esther’s face while she sang Ed Sheeran. I’ll remember dancing with Katrina to the “Hairspray” soundtrack. I’ll remember watching endless SNL sketches with Hayley (“I think I’m entering womanhood RIGHT NOW”). I’ll remember sledding down the Hill with Cortney and fearing for my life.
I’ll remember the moments with each of you that made me feel like I belonged here.
Usually at Beacon parties when the air is warm, we end up on the roof, huddled against the siding, sloping as close to the edge as we dare. The roof brings out the sentimentality in all of us, or maybe it’s the alcohol. Either way, we talk, complain, let off steam from the week.
When we have our last party this weekend, I hope we end up on the roof. I think I’ll just lay there, quiet, back against the coarse shingles, surrounded by the best people I’ve never known.
Claire Dodson is graduating with a degree in English. She will be moving to Los Angeles for the summer to intern at The Hollywood Reporter magazine. She can be reached at [email protected].
