I can still replay in my mind the morning the first edition of The Warrior came out when I was a freshman. I remember shaking, walking into homeroom, hyperventilating a bit, and then it was bestowed upon me: the first publication in which I would ever see my name in print. There it was in all its eleven-point Times New Roman glory: Nora Toscano, Reporter. I knew it then, looking at the miniscule blotch of ink, and I know it now, four years later when it says Editor-in-Chief instead, that I’m meant to do this with my life. 

The very honest truth is that some part of this goodbye has been written since I was a freshman, since I sat with Mr. Kravtiz in my first journalism class and learned how to write an article and watched the people I idolized write theirs. The truth is, my mother taught English, so reading and writing was forced on me like vegetables when I was young; it became so deeply ingrained into me that now there is no separating me from it. The truth is that when I was thirteen and the middle school guidance counselors asked us to make our schedules for the scary place across the Colonnades, I said I liked to write and so I was enrolled in Journalism I. Now I’m eighteen and leaving and owe a lot of what I have to that very arbitrary decision. I liked to write, so I took a class, and four years later, this paper is a home for me. It watched me develop as a student, writer, and person, and watched me grow up. It gave me opportunities that got me into college. It’s the reason I know what I want to study next year and what I want to do with my life. It let me have something to be proud of. 

There are many people at Wantagh High School who I am forever indebted to for getting me here. To the teachers and obviously superior guidance counselor (Malafis on top) who were there for me when things were hard, put in extra time and effort they were never required to in order to help me succeed, and cared about my classmates and I far beyond what is expected of a teacher: I can never fully thank you. To Ms. Flynn, the first person who believed my writing could mean something: I would be absolutely nowhere without you. You gave me opportunities that are quite literally why I am where I am. 

And, of course, to Ms. Magnuson, who so gracefully and successfully took over The Warrior for my last year here: thank you for making this goodbye so hard, for supporting the entire staff and constantly wanting the best for us, and for being the kind of person Wantagh will not recover from losing. 

It’s entirely terrifying to leave this place that built me, but this publication and the people who so passionately keep it afloat have taught me that it’s going to be okay. 

So to The Warrior: thank you for everything, for all I can put into words, but more importantly, for all I cannot.