Senior year is full of goodbyes that you don’t understand, only because its nearly impossible to comprehend the extent of an object’s impact on you while you’re still surrounded by it. You don’t understand any of the goodbyes you’re forced to make until it hits you instantaneously, in a moment where you are immersed with its importance, satiated with its significance, and then the moment passes and you still wonder how you could ever articulate a goodbye for something you now know means so much, but that you are left numb at the thought of leaving. It’s a goodbye you just can’t wrap your head around.

It’s a goodbye to newspaper.

The Red Ledger has been part of my life since I was a freshman, and we became infinitely more bound in the summer before my sophomore year when I became editor-in-chief and spent the summer in E103 creating “www.TheRedLedger.net” with my co-editor Ginger Hervey. The Red Ledger has grown to feel like another extension of myself, like a third arm, a second head, or another chamber of my heart. How could I leave that behind?

Like I said, it’s hard to comprehend parting from something that still surrounds you. At this moment Michelle is spelling a headline wrong, Jordan is eating M&Ms, Ben is creating secret folders on the server, Ian is caressing a burrito, Catherine is researching a band, Doug is writing his 8,673,492nd movie review, Julia is assigning stories, Jillian is spell checking the site, Hallie is doing layout on the print edition, Caroline is posting five stories at once, Higgins is unlocking the snack cabinet, reporters are asking me to read over their articles, and what do you mean I’m leaving?

It’s a goodbye I just don’t understand. A goodbye drenched in denial. A goodbye so painful it takes part of me with it. It’s a goodbye to newspaper, and it’s the hardest one.

I want to say thank you to everyone who’s been a part of my time in this class. From Helen Hanson, the editor-in-chief during my freshman year who saw enough potential in me to appoint me as her successor, to Ginger Hervey, my partner in crime and the only person I could’ve dreamed of sharing the journey with, to Mr. Higgins, who started the same year I did and has been there to give 100 percent every step of the way. You’ve all been so influential on my life.

Every time someone mentions The Red Ledger I beam with pride because of everything we’ve accomplished so far. This year alone we have increased our visits by 228 percent, with 61,090 unique visitors to the site. We have won 12 national awards in the 2013-2014 school year, an accomplishment no other organization on campus can boast of. But one thing more important than all of those combined, we’ve earned a reputation of being a legitimate news source throughout the community. We have over 1,000 followers combined on our social media accounts, The Red Ledger is the home page on every computer in the school, and students look here first for news about what’s going on. So thank you to our readers, too. My heart has never been so full.

I can’t believe my final days here have come, but I am so proud of each year’s staff and all the editors, and I cannot wait to watch The Red Ledger soar to new heights as the years go by. Good luck to you all, I will miss this very much.