I joined newspaper in the second semester of my freshman year, only because I wanted to get out of philosophy class and my brother was a member of the paper. I had joined not really knowing anyone too well but I quickly found my friends.

The first story I ever had to design was with Kate Oudejans and I cried because my brother yelled at me — I didn’t know how InDesign worked. I wasn’t sure if newspaper was for me but I stayed because I thought it would look good on my resume.

Sophomore year was very different because now I was the only Lamberti in the class. Erika Kolseth and Jaron Cole would always “flirt” and random people joined and left the class that year.

Erika sat next to me and, my goodness, was she annoying. We were frenemies, some days giving random compliments, if one of us was feeling nice; other days I was plugging my ears from the constant singing. Still no singing allowed in newspaper until I graduate.

Covid hit and things were definitely different. Five-minute Zooms where we barely communicated with the M-Z students was a change from the old, fun newspaper environment. I love the people on staff now, but you would have just had to have been there before Covid with the old staff. Anyways, another memory was when Erika had me for Secret Santa, writing my name wrong on the bag and getting me my least favorite foods after knowing me for three years.

Toward the end of junior year, Charlie Trent and I got closer and things started to look up. After winning things in Regionals and getting an editor’s position, I had felt super accomplished and realized why I had joined newspaper in the first place: it was to give myself a creative outlet and try something that I traditionally wouldn’t have been interested in.

I am grateful for the friends and the connections I have made, especially with Charlie, Mrs. Huss, Kaitlin, Ayesha and obviously many more.

Newspaper has given me a outlet to different types of people and how to look at things from a different perspective, whether that’s listening to Chloe Browning rant about something, Vince giving some type of speech or Claire complaining about how much work she has to do.

I wouldn’t change my experience for the world and how newspaper has really impacted my time in high school and life in general.