I started counting my lasts in July. Last StuCo camp, last journalism workshop, last lock-in, last first day, last exam, last semester, last UIL event, last award ceremony, and now this: my last blog. I’ve...

I’ve spent a sickening amount of time deciding how I want to write my first, last and only blog for The Rider. Did I want to focus on my journalism classes? How COVID affected my freshman year? All of...

I'm just writing this so I don't get fined. Freshman year, I was forced into Journalism 1 by my sister. She constantly talked about how great of a program it is, how she loved writing, loved the people...

Face masks coordinated with every outfit and sanitizer strapped to my polka-dot backpack defined the ninth grade for me. My freshman year didn’t match my idea of high school at all. However, after an...

I have spent the past two weeks debating what to write this “final blog” about. It’s hard to summarize the craziest four years of my life in a few paragraphs. It’s hard to look back at this long...

A lot can change in four years. One day you’re a freshman learning and meeting your teachers on Zoom because of the Facui virus, some call it COVID-19, and the next you are writing a final signoff on...

For as long as I can remember, I’ve been the golden child in my family. I’ve had the grades, the ambition and the witty personality to match.  When asked what I wanted to be, my response was...

I walked into my first-grade classroom, sat in my assigned seat and began the warm-up that Monday morning. At the beginning of each week, my teacher, Mrs. Watson, would give us a worksheet, asking...

In the fifth grade, I stepped into a large rectangular room filled to the brim with various instruments ranging in size from a small notebook to over 6 feet tall. I had been insanely fascinated by...

When I was around 11 or 12 I was sitting in my dad's truck with him, my mom, my brother and me. We had the radio turned to KSHE 95, the classic rock station for St. Louis. I remember a specific song...