I remember when I first came to look at New Paltz. After a tour, I came across a stack of Oracles. My dad tried to get me to read one, but I wanted nothing to do with it. Now, here I am, four years later, having everything to do with it.
It began not with The Oracle, but with the Men’s Rugby team and an acquaintance. A few guys on the team who I was friends with asked me to photograph one of their games, and I agreed even though I didn’t think I’d be any good at sports photography. Surprisingly, I was completely wrong. So I kept photographing their games and a conference of theirs in Albany. While I was photographing the conference, I remembered this girl in a bunch of my classes, Cat, had something to do with The Oracle. So I texted her to see if something could be put in the paper. The next week, my photo was on the back page. It was unreal. What was even more unreal was being contacted a few months later, saying the paper needed a photography editor for the following semester.
And that semester started off with my most memorable assignment. Hurricane Irene hit. The town was without power, people’s houses and academic buildings were flooded, many were without cell service. Meanwhile, I was out there in my rain boots on a bright sunny day with Julie, the Editor-in-Chief at the time, wading out into the Walkill to photograph the flooded river. I walked under fallen electric poles in order to get photos I wanted, while Julie begged me to be careful so her new photo editor wouldn’t die. This was the first of many crazy things I would do for this newspaper.
Why would I do such crazy things for The Oracle, you may ask? Because it’s so much more than a paper. It’s a group of people who become a family each semester no matter who stays, who goes and who’s just starting. Cat, that girl that I sort of knew is now one of my best friends and I got to watch her grow to the incredible Editor-in-Chief she is up until this issue.
I have so much more I want to say but so little space. I can’t believe it’s been three years that I’ve been on this E-board. It feels like just a couple semesters ago that I joined. All of the E-boards I’ve been a part of blend together. Maybe it’s because each of them was filled with amazing, hard-working people. I love all of you and I’m seriously going to miss spending my Wednesday nights in the corner of our tiny orange office. The Oracle defined my time in New Paltz and I don’t know where I’d be without it.>