Maeve's Goodbye Letter

To the Voices team and its audience:

I joined Voices as an extremely anxious and self-conscious freshman. I walked into room 304 and chose to write a column, mostly because that required minimal interviewing. As a sophomore, I branched out more in my articles. One of my favorite pieces covered stage crew as they prepared for a musical. It was Mr. Gilken’s first year as stage crew sponsor (after Mr. Neights left for Guatemala), and I interviewed some members, going “behind the scenes” before that year’s production of Shrek. It was a whole new approach to theater at Masterman, and writing that article really cemented my love of journalism. Last school year I got to be a huge nerd, though, as an editor. What can I say? There’s just something satisfying about fixing grammatical errors and giving advice on how to make a good article a great one. Being a member of Voices has given me more confidence, improved my writing skills and reinforced my love of storytelling, ultimately helping me to choose a Communications major.

So much has changed over the four years Anna and I have been with Voices: a shifted schedule with the insertion of December’s holiday issue, a video team, a website and Instagram page, a pandemic and a months-long shelter-in-place order. It’s been scary. But Voices writers have always stepped up to the challenge. This September, Ms. Gentlesk, the editing team, Anna and I were surprised at the number of students coming to meetings (more than 50 writers attended our first Meet!). Of course those numbers waned a little, but the energy the Voices team brought that first day kept us going throughout the year. We’ve had more incredible video essays this year, and have modified Word in the Halls to a video format. We’ve produced so many amazing, full, online issues. And the writers, editors, video team, layout and photographers have made that happen.

So a HUGE thank-you to Voices team 2020-2021! The fact we were still able to produce a full digital issue each month including photographs and videos is still so impressive to me. First, I’d like to thank Voices’ sponsor for the past 3 years, Ms. Gentlesk. Voices literally wouldn’t be able to function without you. Your drive to push writers to do their best is unmatched and so appreciated. To my CoEditor-in-Chief, Anna O’Neill-Dietel (12-3), thank you for your amazing ideas and editing talent; your leadership and help throughout the year (as well as reminders for my disorganized a**) was conductive in a virtual workspace! To my fellow editors and video contributors in the Class of 2021… we did it! We got through pretty much the toughest high school experience in our lifetime, and it will be so exciting to see the world literally and figuratively open up to us in college. Thank you for your time and effort at Voices. To those of you who aren’t graduating yet, keep creating. Hopefully you’ll be in school next year and can appreciate once more the cockroach fights in the first-floor bathroom and radiators on full blast in October. Helena and Isabel, you’re going to be amazing Editors-in-Chief. I can’t wait to check in on the site and see all the amazing work Voices is sure to publish in the future!

Have the best summer.

Maeve