By Staff
I was asked in a job interview Thursday what I thought my biggest accomplishment was. I told the panel of five people sitting across from me that earning a bachelor's degree was a gratifying moment in my life. I then began to explain how proud I felt to see my name appear for the first time on a story byline and below a photo in the Niles Daily Star.
Even still, it makes me proud every day to see that.
If time would have allowed, I could have spent a good part of the interview explaining why I was even more proud to have been a member of the Niles community.
On Friday, I will file my last story for the Daily Star.
After 14 months as a reporter and photographer I am returning to Grand Valley State University to earn a master's degree in communications and hopefully, if that job interview went as well as I thought, assume the role of photography coordinator for the university's News and Information Services department.
They asked me how experienced I was contacting and talking with people I'd never met before. I had to chuckle a little bit.
I couldn't be more excited to start a new chapter and challenge in my life. However, the transition will be bitter sweet because I will be saying see ya later – not goodbye – to a special community and a number of special people here in Niles.
A description of Niles' physical characteristics to an outsider may make the city sound like Anytown, U.S.A. There are a number of other small cities that come together for high school sports, community service organization fundraisers and festivals along the river that weaves through their downtown – though I'm willing to bet there are few, if any, places other than Niles that every August send dozens of its citizens down that river on Anything That Floats, firing water balloons at hundreds of people on shore.
But I've found that, though they're important, it's not the location, natural resources or events that take place in this community that make Niles special: it's the people. All of you are what make Niles more than just Anytown, U.S.A.
And, in the short time I called Niles home, you welcomed me as a part of that.
It was always nice covering events for the Daily Star and running into familiar faces. Realizing I had become one of those familiar faces to a lot of people in town was even better.
I started out reporting on non-profit, community service organizations, and you challenged me to also take on the role of participating in them. I couldn't be more grateful, for I now understand first hand how volunteering time and energy toward helping others is one of the most important things any individual can, and should, do.
It is also what makes a place like Niles, with a population of varying and passionate opinions, able to put views aside and come together for what are most important – other people in the community. Because any city can advertise as close-knitted and caring, but its citizens must prove it and make it a reality through a commitment to making a better place to live for all and physically giving themselves to the least fortunate people around them.
I believe Niles is a model of such practices.
I won't try to name people or organizations for which to thank, for I would undoubtedly forget someone or something very important. Besides, though I owe many of you endless thanks for your support and many good times, it makes more sense to say Thank You to the Niles community, because that's who you are, and that's what I am most grateful for.
I may be moving away from Niles, but I won't be disappearing. I will return for fundraisers and, you can bet, summer festivals, though this time I think I'll observe Anything That Floats from the shore -the Leader Publications raft didn't necessarily do a whole lot of floating last time.
Like I said, this is see ya later -not goodbye. No matter how far away I live from this community, I will always feel I was a part of it.
Thank you, Niles. I couldn't be more proud.