What a Long, Strange Journey It's Been

Tue, 26 May 2009 17:10:28 GMT

By Jennifer Grasch and Kelsey Bone

Photo Courtesy of Kelsey Bone
Lamplighter Editors-in-Chief Kelsey Bone and Jennifer Grasch celebrate the successful publication of the first issue.

As the editors of The Lamplighter , we have issues. Deadline issues, censorship issues, even a few personal issues. We’ve had prom issues, going green issues, and this: the senior issue. Our last issue. It’s time to step back and say goodbye, but we’re not quite ready to relinquish our opportunity to speak our minds. Looking back over our three years as Lamplighter staff members, and our four years as Dunbar students, there’s a little more we want to say. . . Thank you to every person who took a newspaper when we stood in the hallway calling out “Newspaper, newspaper! Who wants a newspaper?” as you walked to lunch. A big huge thanks to our staff. You’ve been through a lot with us, and even when we got frustrated and impatient, thanks for hanging in there. Make it even better next year and be sure to send us copies of the paper. Mrs. Turner, thanks for teaching us to care about journalism and its role in a democratic society. You have given us determination and passion for protecting freedom of speech that we will carry with us into college and beyond. Thank you for the microwave popcorn at 8:30 p.m. when we’re the last people left in the school building (except the custodian) and we’re rushing to meet a newspaper deadline. Thank you to the computers in lab 302 for shutting down at 6:30 p.m. with no notice and surprising us with the countless “this file is corrupted and cannot be recovered” notices we’ve come to know and love. And thanks, Mr. Adams and STLP, for saving us (or at least trying to) when those messages popped up on our screens the night before we went to press. Thank you to the Twix bars and M&M’s that paid for the last few editions of our paper.lknmljk Thanks to the parents of our staff members who supplied Fazoli’s, Subway, and pizza for our late days. Thank you to the one student who wrote a letter to the editor. Thanks for caring and sharing your opinion. Please write more next year. Thanks to every student and teacher who filled out our surveys and answered our polls. Except for you, who put a pastime we are not permitted to print as your favorite after-school activity. You know who you are. But thanks for making us laugh. We’d like to thank the sewage system of Dunbar High School for the ‘Dunbar Funk’ that tickled our noses so many days, and the heating system for the days we shivered through classes in sweaters and parkas. Thank you to the people who devoted their Saturday mornings to building the Memorial Garden and making our school a little more beautiful. We appreciate it, and what you do does matter. Thank you to the unknown student who returned a lost flash drive with newspaper articles saved on it. Although we can’t thank you in person, we appreciate the kindness. Because we can never say it enough, thank you to every single teacher and faculty member and cafeteria worker and custodian who has made our high school experience possible. We’ll miss the little things, like Clux Delux sandwiches on Wednesdays and the Mission Impossible theme song blasting through the hallways. And we’ll miss the big moments, like preparing for prom, and one day very soon, graduating. But most of all, we’ll miss the simple things. Walking down the hallway. Cheering at the basketball games. Laughing hysterically with our friends in class. Watching as every person at our lunch table poured over a new edition of the newspaper. While we’re so excited about what awaits us down the road, we’ll miss this place. We’ll miss Dunbar. We’ll miss you. Thank you.