Two and a half years later, and this paper still leaves me speechless. Photo courtey of Grace Hensley.
JASPER PILARZ | NEWS CO-EDITOR | lpilarz@butler.edu
When I thought about writing my Senior Sendoff, up until this point, I thought it would be easy. After all, if writing and editing for the News section has taught me anything, it’s how to write a story. Whether it was coverage for on-campus events or documenting the world beyond the Butler Bubble, from beginning to end, pitch to pitch, I’ve always been telling stories.
Beginning, middle, end. I know these things. And yet, I can’t find where to start with this goodbye. It feels like there’s almost too much to say.
I applied to work at The Butler Collegian in February 2023, the spring semester of my sophomore year, with absolutely no journalism experience or even general knowledge. I had only written one other professionally published work before — a poem about butterflies from my eighth-grade English class.
It’s probably worth mentioning that I had little to no confidence in myself and my writing. I felt behind in all of my English classes, having started my degree a year late, and I had nothing but a few half-baked Wattpad projects to show for my creative writing endeavors. Needless to say, I was going in completely and utterly blind. For a while, I wondered if they’d even hire me if they knew I would be starting at basically ground zero.
I was out of my depth before I even finished the application. There were so many more moving pieces than I had realized. Four different writing sections, Photography, Design and Multimedia. I remember looking at my phone and just thinking, “Okay, what do I think will be the easiest to learn?”
I marked on the application that I was most interested in News, hoping my political science classes and interest in current events would be enough to get me through. As a bonus, News was entirely objective. This sounded like a safe haven from all the subjective criticism I feared, like I’d be writing for a class.
It’s almost laughable how wrong I was. The first story I ever wrote was coverage of a protest organized by the ACLU at the Indiana Capitol building downtown in response to transphobic legislation passing in the Indiana Senate. To me, a fresh-faced writer constantly desperate to prove themself, it was the perfect pitch. It was my community and my wheelhouse — trans people and politics. I had to write it.
Did I know what AP Style was? Absolutely not. Was I even thinking about writing the article yet? You bet your ass I wasn’t. I just knew it was my story.
That story is still the work I’m most proud of. Not because it’s my strongest, but because working on it taught me so much more than I expected to learn. Writing the piece put me in the state capitol, listening to an Indiana Senate hearing and protesting alongside hundreds of LGBTQIA+ Hoosiers. I wasn’t just documenting an event; I was living the moment and recording the story.
I hate to say I peaked early in my journalism career, but no moment has compared to the pure, unbridled pride I felt at seeing my first article in print. It felt like a fog had lifted, and the pieces fell into place. I got to help tell the story of queer Hoosiers and Bulldogs at a time when they were being actively silenced. I was doing something that mattered for the people I cared about, and I’d found a community that would help me do it.
The rest of the semester, I worked like hell to keep up that high. I look back on that semester so fondly because I am so, so proud of the person I was then for facing their fears and diving in so fully. I know now that I am a very strong writer, but I’d never have let myself believe it if I hadn’t taken on that first big challenge.
And I rode that high all the way through to April, when the editorial board applications for 2023-24 went live. To be entirely honest, I hadn’t really planned on applying to be an editor. I probably wouldn’t have given any serious thought to applying at all if my editors at the time, Gabi Morando and Annie Faulkner, hadn’t asked me to.
Even then, I couldn’t decide. It was a huge honor to be recommended for an editor position, but it didn’t change the reality that I didn’t feel ready. I didn’t think I was good enough, that I’d done enough. In the end, current Managing Editor Aidan Gregg had to practically shake me by the shoulders and tell me to do it before I felt confident enough to even try submitting an application.
And, of course, since I’m writing a sendoff, we know how that went. I have loved being a part of this paper, but truly nothing could have prepared me for what I’d learn in my time on this board. As an editor, I’ve gotten to be part of so, so many stories. Not just telling them, but helping them take form through my writers. My section taught me patience, collaboration, accountability and that I have so, so much love for every person that’s touched my life this way.
Looking back, my only regrets are the things I didn’t have the time to do. If I had known how much this paper would teach me — about the world and this campus and myself — I would have applied so much sooner. But even then, I wouldn’t trade these last two and a half years for anything.
Newsies, new and old, you have held my heart in your hands just by being in this section, and I cannot thank each of you enough for giving my passion a space to grow. It would have been quite literally impossible for me to do any of this without you.
Ryann Bahnline and Allie McKibben — my first co-editors — are still two of the coolest women I’ve ever met. Genuinely, thank you for keeping me sane and also going insane with me every desperately late pub night. This section would not still be standing without each of you powerhouse women. I am honored to have worked alongside each of you — even if I did run away to the UK halfway through.
Gabi Morando and Annie Faulkner, my News Moms, saw my potential and fostered a confidence in me that I would have probably never found on my own. They trusted me with the story that changed the way I looked at writing and helped me find my voice. Gabi and Annie taught me how to find a story, and every day I see them thrive as bright, talented, badass women. I love them so, so much.
Leah Ollie and Reece Butler were unknowingly my biggest inspirations on this paper. I have never met two women who scared me more, but there are also no other people I wanted to emulate as an editor more. Confident, capable, precocious and passionate, Leah and Reece are the two people I’m most grateful for meeting through this paper.
Lily O’Connor will forever be my emotional support woman in STEM. But more than that, Lily has been an inspiration to me. I am constantly in awe and envy of her drive, work ethic and brilliant mind. I cannot wait to see where her time at Butler and on the Collegian takes her. Lily is a star; she always has been and always will be.
Aidan Gregg can’t escape this sappy callout. Before I had any friends on the Collegian, I had Aidan. As an editor for Opinion, he really had no reason to push me so hard to edit for News, but he did it anyway. That’s the kind of person he is — that no-bullsh*t honesty that always comes with just the right amount of comfort to keep you sane and just enough sincerity to show he means it. Aidan is going to change the world, starting in Berkeley, and I am so honored to get to be part of his story.
I have been so honored to be part of The Butler Collegian, and I’m so relieved to say my only regret is that I’ve run out of time. This paper has given me so much more than just a space to write. Collegian Nation, you believed in me when I couldn’t, just by reading my work. I am so grateful that you all have trusted me, and the writers I work with, to bring you your news and tell your stories.
