After seven years of providing bathroom reading material to countless students and staff, The Stall Street Journal, an absolutely iconic bathroom read at Norwood High School is very sadly coming to an end. Over those seven years, it amassed countless regular student and staff readers who always made time to have a look at the latest issue whenever using the restrooms on campus. 

The writer of the Stall Street Journal, NHS guidance counselor Kristen McDonnell gave some great information about the history of the Stall Street Journal. McDonnell discusses how it came to be, and her inspirations for wanting to start a writing piece. 

“I was just driving one day, and thinking of things. And I always wanted to put out a newsletter, and at the time I was the head of guidance. So I wanted to put out a newsletter from guidance with different events, and information… That students should have been aware of, and it kind of just evolved from there!”Counselor McDonnell added.

 “So when I started writing it I asked my staff members for events that were upcoming and then it progressed on… How could we make this more fun for readers, and that's when it became asking a staff member. And at first, it was asking new staff members to talk about themselves; and then we kinda ran out of new staff members to ask so it naturally progressed into asking current staff members about themselves, and I think it's good because it humanizes them to students too… And yeah, that's kinda where it all began,” she said.

With time, the Stall Street Journal was bound to change. Surprisingly, some of its biggest changes happened during the COVID-19 pandemic. 

“Yeah, it weirdly picked up and what was kinda cool about it is I would put it out to students and staff and because it was electronic I would get a lot of feedback on it like funny things or teachers jokingly poking fun at the staff member, or tell me that a trivia question was wrong and I started googling my trivia answers to make sure they were right… The quality increased! It just had to!”McDonnell said.

Sadly good things don’t last forever. McDonnell announced earlier this year that the Stall Street Journal was sadly coming to an end; as the final issue was published just earlier this month. Counselor McDonnell ended with all of her potential future aspirations for the legacy of Stall Street Journal.  

“I feel like I've almost run out of things…Like that creative thought process has run dry, and I do think it needs some new energy… So like I said I am kind of like… Hoping in the back of my head that someone continues it whether that's interviewing different staff members, or interviewing different students I think it would be cool to interview different English language students to see like where they came from, and their different cultures. Or even like school events, like what's happening this month…. Or anything that gets people on board and be really proud to be that Mustang.” 

Is the Stall Street Journal's legacy truly over? Or will it continue through other means in the future?