Patrick Kenney says farewell to the Springfield Student newspaper

Patrick Kenney
Editor-In-Chief
@PRyKenney

A lot of people have been asking if writing my last newspaper article and laying out my final Springfield Student will be emotional and honestly I have one word for them; no.

Please let me explain.

For the past four years I have been able to call myself part of The Springfield Student family and I would not change any second it. I have devoted so much time and effort on Wednesday nights that I have forgot what Wednesday nights feel like outside of the little hole we call our newspaper office.

It will be amazing to have free time again and not have to worry about budgets, stories, layout, photos, writers, and of course the infamous Marty Dobrow calls on weekends just to make sure we were on the same page (surprisingly I was always one step ahead of him).

As for right now I will gladly accept free Wednesdays and essentially a free schedule, so the only emotion I feel right now is relief.

However, give me a few days, weeks, heck even months to soak up what I am about to go through. Graduation, a full-time job, a new apartment and maybe even a new city. That is a lot to ask for any person yet every year college graduates do it.

Yes, I will miss walking down to the newspaper office and seeing the faces of Logan Mullen, Marshall Hastings, Shawn McFarland, Greg Allen, Greg Fitzpatrick, Joe Brown, Jon Santer, Andrew Gutman and everyone I have worked with and grew close to over the past four years.

Yes, I will miss the scrambled mess we call layout nights because it brought pure excitement and laughter every week. Sure we could have organized it better but what’s the fun in that right?

Yes, I will miss hunting down sources and scrambling to find quotes just to have enough for a 500-word piece only to find out Marty wants me to start over (seriously though this happens more than you think).

It has been a great run and I will forever miss Springfield College and the Student but everything must come to an end at some point and it is time for me to hand our paper off to the next bunch of students who I know will carry this thing further than I ever did.

Okay I guess this is the time where I should throw out some thank yous so here we go.

Of course I want to thank the people that have been on staff with me and I have grown to call them my friends (see everyone I listed above plus Vin Gallo and Ali Izzi).

I also want to thank my parents for always encouraging me to find my path at college and I think I can finally say that I did.

I want to thank Marty Dobrow for being the best mentor a young journalist could ask for. Your patience, teaching and willingness to help are the only reasons why I am the writer and journalist I am today. Thank you Marty.

My last thank you goes to my wonderful girlfriend, Amanda Bradford. I wont get to mushy here but having her push me through all the hard times and keeping me on my feet was everything I needed in order to truly find myself and understand why I love telling stories and being a journalist.

So for now it is goodbye Springfield Student. It has been a great ride.