Editor’s Note: This article was also published in the Benet Herald 2024 Graduation Edition.

To the best graduating class of all time!

As I wrap up my tenure as Editor-in-Chief of the Benet Herald, I take this chance to step back and think about the past four years at Benet. I will never forget the excitement.. the anxiety… the feeling of embracing the future as I prepared to start high school.

So many ideas, expectations, and anticipations… and it was all wiped out by the COVID-19 pandemic! From the sudden loss of the social interaction I was looking forward to with my classmates, to my militant wearing of a mask every single day, to the hybrid learning days, my career at Benet, as well as yours, took a totally different trajectory than we expected. But you know what? I wouldn’t trade it for anything!

Learning at Benet has really fostered my curiosity of the natural world. Whether it be making flammable hydrogen gas and letting it rise in the air, launching rockets on the football field, or building up charge on a Van De Graff generator and shocking random objects, Benet has given me the best environment to be myself and further my scientific utility belt, after all, “It’s not who I am underneath, but what I do that defines me.”

I have loved my time serving as Editor-in-Chief of the Herald, and wanted to express my gratitude to “readers (viewers) like you”! My two years working at the Benet Herald further enhanced my all around experience and has shaped me into who I have become today.

The articles I wrote, the teachers I interviewed, and the students I met broadened my horizons of what Benet truly is and encouraged me to remove my metaphorical mask hiding my personality and guide me to where I stand today.

If you wish to track me down, you can find me at Case Western Reserve University where I will be on the pre-med track alongside my brother. As a future scientist, I hope to “invent, transform, create, and destroy for a living and when I don’t like something about the world, change it”.

I would like to give a special shout out to my parents and grandparents, and my brother. The biggest influence on me though, was my dog Kylo. During the time of the writing of the graduation edition (which you are reading right now), my dog Kylo tragically passed away. Although this was a major setback and devastating, it taught me a lesson in perseverance and on looking back on life as a positive celebration of our impact on others. Even though he may not be with us in person, he will always be present in my heart.

All in all, as my time at the Benet Herald comes to an end, I know that this is just the beginning. The Benet Herald will continue to thrive and be an integral experience for all students at Benet just as it was 30 years ago when my Dad wrote for it. I look forward to what the Class of 2024 has in store for them in the coming years. Look out world here we come!