COLUMN: It’s time to leave, and I’m taking you with me
I can still remember waiting in the Living Learning Center elevator with a shopping cart full of my life. Bags of clothes, sheets and my family’s old cookware were hanging over the sides of the cart as I pushed it to Room E102. I remember immediately bonding with my roommate. I also remember that she made me cry a few months later and moved. I remember the first time I saw a mysterious boy – who is now my husband – walking out of the Marketplace. We kissed on the Block A and liked watching USU’s hockey team crush everyone they played. I remember the first time I walked down the daunting hall of The Statesman Office.
Since that first August day I spent in my empty dorm room, recognizing how alone I felt in a city where I didn’t have a single friend, I’ve felt that I belonged. Maybe it’s the history I see in the campus buildings and the towering trees, or maybe it’s the nearby mountains that change so distinctly with the seasons. Somehow, I was connected. I remember the sick feeling I felt when the Aggies were down by two points in the final 10 seconds of a basketball game. After four years at USU, I can’t walk 100 feet without seeing someone I know, and that makes me feel more at home than I felt at any point during my childhood in Reno. I’ve failed and succeeded, loved and lost. I’m sure I speak for almost every senior when I say, leaving Cache Valley isn’t easy.
But perceptions change. The all-powerful student body president I looked at in awe as a freshman, is now just some kid I sit next to in U.S. history class. Sometimes, I don’t understand what our student leaders are talking about, and often, I don’t think they know what they are talking about either. At Day on the Quad, some hotshot was mulling around in the crowd with a sloppy grin, telling random people to go to his party. As an 18-year-old, I would have gone. This time around, I laughed out loud and rolled my eyes.
If I’m ever unfortunate enough to take a course with a self-pronounced class clown – the guy I would have laughed hysterically at a few years ago – I will try desperately to get into another class. It’s absurd that any punk could be so egotistical as to test a professor in a college setting – especially to publicly complain about a measly homework assignment. My Aggie pride started to dwindle this semester as I watched our basketball crowd go from a powerhouse to a group of whining children, especially after the crowd decreased in size and fans decided to quit cheering altogether at the beginning of a game. Perhaps this means I’ve officially lost my cool factor.
Being a newspaper editor in a sleepy town like Logan is a battle. When the highlight of the crime report is a group of smart-alec sophomores mounting the bull statue in their birthday suits, you know you’re in trouble. At the same time, living in Cache Valley means safety. It’s easy to focus on bettering yourself as a student and a person when you aren’t surrounded by mischief. I believe my various jobs at the news desk and as editor in chief have allowed me to see Logan as it really is. It’s chock-full of charity.
Though small, Logan puts itself on national and international maps for research and innovative thinking of all kinds. However, it has its fair share of criminals and tragedies. I was a freshman when Michael Starks died in a fraternity hazing event. He sat next to me in “Intelligent Life in the Universe.” I also remember covering the Logan Lurker and all the befuddled students who were stolen from before their very eyes.
When our favorite fan “Wild” Bill Sproat was approaching death, I was able to talk to him about how he made it through. I remember sending a reporter to the scene of Brandon Wright’s motorcycle accident last semester and later this year snooping around the charred Institute Building kitchen after it caught on fire.
While I am more than ready to get on with my life, leaving Cache Valley far behind, I know I can’t leave it too far. I’ve planted my heart here. I’ve been able to be the fly on the wall for all those moments that terrified and elated my peers. Coming into my freshman year I told myself I would leave feeling I had taken the most from my four years at USU that I could. I will confidently argue that my college experience has been among the richest of any student in my graduating class.
Not only will I take away what I’ve learned from personal experiences, but what I’ve learned from the hundreds who have let me into their lives to tell their stories. I am leaving with my perspective and yours. And because of this, I will walk across the stage in my black cap and feel satisfied. I came to USU with a shopping cart of odds and ends, but I will leave with my arm wrapped around my husband, a full resume and an Aggie sticker in my window. I will also leave with hundreds of newspaper clippings of you that will stay with me wherever I go.
– Catherine Meidell Bennett is editor in chief of The Utah Statesman. She has been a member of The Statesman staff since 2009 and graduates this semester with a degree in English and print journalism. Comments on this column can be sent to statesmanoffice@aggiemail.usu.edu.