By Justin St. Peter

Oh, the Royal Purple. I have thought about writing this for a very long time, and even now, it still feels surreal. I have poured five years of my heart and soul into this organization, which have truly been a roller-coaster.

I still remember the terror running through my heart as I went to conduct my first interview about a sport that I had neither seen nor read about. As I contemplated skipping the interview for another day, my sports editor texted and asked if he could help in any way. After he reached out like that, I couldn’t let him down and probably conducted the worst interview ever, but hey I did it.

I am by no means a professional reporter (hopefully that will change soon), but I like to think that I have grown immensely throughout my time at the Royal Purple. It is a hands-on education that no classroom setting could have even come close to replicating, and I wouldn’t replace it for anything in the world.

From being called out by both the chancellor and Dean of Arts and Communication for an article I wrote, to being able to present at the Associated Collegiate Press convention in Minneapolis this year, I wonder how anyone would be able to learn about journalism without an extensive experience like this.

This newspaper has been one of the integral parts of life that has held me together as I have dealt with a variety of personal problems, and as I slowly begin to move past them. Because of that, I won’t be graduating quite yet, but I will be soon enough. In the meantime, I will be moving back home and will pass the reigns on to the next person in charge of the sports section.

There have been countless memories here that are nowhere near appropriate to put in print. Let’s just say, there was a tally kept for the number of times I would point to the quote board when somebody on staff said something that would have the staff rolling with laughter. One semester, I even won trophy for best quote of them all.

Now most of these goodbye letters end with shout outs to the people that influenced them the most during their time here. Being a super senior, that list is so long that I am sure everybody reading this would be asleep by the time I finished writing them.

To the athletes and coaches who have allowed me to tell their own individual stories, thank you for working with me and making the athletic department so much fun to report on.

To my staff writers and assistant sports editors, thank you for keeping me on my toes and allowing me to teach you some of the things that my biggest mentors have taught me.

I do have to shout out Josh Sinclair for the greatest self-prescribed nicknames and titles for all of his stories. Even though he doesn’t think he should be a journalist, his comedy each week will be greatly missed.

To Dr. T, our loyal staff advisor who will fight for us forever, I think it is especially shitty what the university has done to you and hope to have you in my life forever.

To my former sports editors, thank you for molding me into the writer that I am.

To my fellow staffers, thank you for allowing me to be Papa Pete to both give advice and laugh hysterically along with you. You all are great and will be wildly successful. I would love to shout you all out but again, the readers might call it a snooze fest.

I do have to talk about three people by name though. To the senior staffers (by RP time), you all are going to be amazing journalists.

Brad, stay confident, you’re awesome.

Kim and Ashley, where do I even begin. From you having joint custody of me walking home Monday nights after a production night (yes that’s a thing) to surviving the cold war between staff members at the beginning of our time here, we have done it all together and became great friends in the process.

I hope I can stay in contact with so many of the people from both the school and the RP.

One final thing that not many people will understand, but I have to say it: #teamoverthrow