Goodbye Scarecrow, I think I'm going to miss you most of all

Suffolk University on Cape Cod had a graduation dinner party last night for the 18 of us that finished this year. While the food was excellent, it was the company I will long remember. Who knows when we will, if we will, gather together again. All the grads stood up and gave speech's and thanked everyone and like most things of similar nature, someone will cry, I just didn't think it would be me. When my time came I couldn't begin to say what I wanted. I felt much like Dorothy leaving OZ. Tears overwhelmed me and I sat down before I thanked the people I wanted to the most.

Last night I had intended on thanking Jim Kershner for believing me and giving me the chance to stretch my editorial skills. Everyone around me is crediting me with 'saving the Mainsheet,' and all I can really say is that I did what anyone else would have done. I had poured so much of myself into that paper all year that I couldn't just see it come to an end, especially on the note it played last. So for two editions, I was the editor and it did feel really good.

I had so many courses with Jim and still don't know why I saved Journalism for last. I wish that I had gotten involved sooner so that I might really build a position at the Mainsheet. In the end, I still have that sense of accomplishment I am looking for and can't thank Jim enough for that.

I wanted to tell Tim Miller that his remarks on my papers were some of the ones I took to heart the most. As he writes professional opinions, I was always nervous to hand him my work. Would he like it, would he hate it? In the end I know that either one would be alright as long as it made enough of a splash to invoke some reaction. "All Killer and No Filler," I will remember that and carry it with me and hope to make him proud.

Alicia. God, she was more than my inspiration. I don't really know how to say what I want to about her. I don't think should I ever have another editor, that they would be as kind, insightful, encouraging or as talented as Alicia Blaisdell-Bannon. My very first class with her awoke the hungry writer inside me and convinced me that I had found my calling. She stopped me as I left my final that day and said to me, "Jen, keep writing." I pondered the nature of her comment for a while and all but convinced myself that I needed to really work on my writing because it was lacking big-time, but understand now that she believed in me and my words. I suppose that's how any writer feels when their craft is appreciated, but knowing that Alicia appreciates mine makes me feel a real sense of accomplishment. I hope one day to see something of mine published that would make her proud. Thank you Alicia, thank you.

As for my classmates, I believe that Doug said it best when he said he would take some of us with him always. That's exactly how I feel. I loved Suffolk, I loved our small classes and I will think back to the memories we created always.

Here's to the Suffolk University graduating class of 2009, with love

~Jen