My name is Grayson Thomas and I have had the pleasure of being one of the first staff writers for the Memorial Messenger.
Additionally, I am a senior and this has been my first and only year to do high school journalism. However, it has truly been one of the best experiences of my life.
At the end of my junior year, I had talked to my mom about wanting to try new things, and she encouraged me to join journalism, as she felt that I had always been a good writer. She had participated in journalism throughout high school and college and loved it.
Coming into senior year, I decided to use a free space in my schedule to join Memorial’s newspaper class.
Shortly before the school year started, I was wanting to get some practice and asked Duncan if I could write a story about Bull School, and he graciously allowed me to.
As soon as I began typing out this story, I knew that I was going to love doing journalism. The thrill that came from getting to share what was going on in our school was truly amazing.
Once school started, I began writing as many articles as I could about multiple different topics including teacher interviews, personal stories and different events happening at the school.
After Christmas break, Coach Duncan asked me if I would be interested in doing UIL journalism, and although I had never done it before, I was ready for the challenge.
I spent nearly every weekend before our district meet practicing all kinds of different writing styles: feature writing, news writing and editorial writing, all in preparation for competition.
At the end of the March, I competed in four different journalism events at Abilene Wylie against four other schools. I was extremely nervous going up against kids who had been doing journalism for years, while I had only been doing it for a few short months for fun.
When results came out, I remember not even looking at the top three spots since I was confident that I wouldn’t place highly in anything, but I was wrong.
I ended up placing first in news writing, sixth in feature writing and sixth in copy editing. I was extremely surprised and grateful, especially winning the news writing competition.
This meant that I would be moving on and competing in news writing at the regional level at the end of April.
I was so excited to compete at regionals. The experience felt almost unreal, going from never even doing journalism to placing first in my district and competing at regionals against 40-plus other schools.
I ended up placing sixth at the regional level against 24 of the best writers in the state of Texas. Even though I didn’t advance, I was extremely grateful for the opportunity of getting to compete and meet so many other talented writers.
It’s extremely hard to leave high school journalism behind. I know I only did this for a year, but the art of journalism truly taught me so many valuable lessons that I will carry with me throughout the rest of my life.
I would like to express my gratitude to Coach Duncan and my fellow journalism students for all of their encouragement and support they’ve shown me throughout the years. I will never forget the memories I made and the stories I wrote this year, and I hope that journalism can continue to impact students’ lives like it did mine.
