I don't think anyone outside those being addressed enjoy reading farewell columns.
So if you glance over the last half of this page, I totally understand. This most likely isn't for you.
Here goes: Goodbye The Auburn Plainsman. You've been a good friend, a constant in a period of extreme but exciting change.
You gave as much as you took. And you taught me more than I realize, I'm sure.
You've introduced me to lifelong friends and assorted interesting people.
These friends and acquaintances, more than I can or will list (taking the easy way out), helped me establish my place at Auburn.
I always felt I was part of two unique groups--Auburn student and Plainsman staff member.
Being a part of The Plainsman is impossible to describe or understand until you've actually been a Plainsman staff member.
It's a strange world unlike anything else I've experienced on campus.
And I'm glad I got to inhabit that world for a period of time, even if I can't really remember how long for various reasons.
(I do, however, remember certain trips to certain places involving setting fire to certain sensitive areas of certain members of a certain disreputable profession. That was interesting and made for a good story, one which I probably told too many times.)
Any of you still reading not a part of The Plainsman staff interested in journalistic or nonfiction writing should join as soon as possible.
I learned more about writing and journalism working at The Plainsman than I did in all my classes I took during my four-and-a-half years at Auburn combined.
Classes are all about earning arbitrary grades--grades which mean nothing in postgraduation to the nongrad school applicant--and less about hands-on (or actual, for that matter) learning.
Sure, The Plainsman looks good on a resume, but it's really about being passionate and taking pride in your work.
I will miss it. But it won't miss me, not for long anyway.
A new group will heed the call, as always.
Legacies don't last long here. Nor should they. The Plainsman is about perpetual renewal.
A piece of advice that you should at least consider even if I am only 22: Don't take college or yourself too seriously.
And practice selective hearing in, and out, of class.
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