I always knew this day would come. The day where I’d be staying up unreasonably late — for one of the last times — once again writing an article.

However, I never intended to wind up here.

Four years ago I had no clue what college held for me. I somehow stumbled my way into sending an interest email to a sports and managing editor by the name of Tristan Tucker — my first fateful interaction I had with Technician.

I wasn’t even close to ready for what came next.

One article after another, I was sucked in. Journalism, something I never knew, and never even considered, grew on me. Soon enough, I became addicted, finishing correspondency in record time. So, my first thank you goes to Tristan, who got me into all of this and showed me the model of a maniacal sports editor and writer. My second and third go to my Vol. 102 sports editors: Nicholas Schnittker, who took me to my first sports recap, and Bryan Pyrtle, who I still love seeing in press boxes on weekends.

Once the spring semester of my freshman year rolled around, all bets were off. Apparently, no one liked to write tennis articles, so I did.

I’ll interject once again with a big thank you to the NC State men’s and women’s tennis programs and their coaches, Kyle Spencer and Simon Earnshaw. I couldn’t imagine the past four years of my life without priding myself on covering every single one of these matches. From six-hour thrillers to my favorite article I’ve ever written after the women won the 2023 ACC title, thank you to both of you, the game of college tennis and countless players for all the memories.

After agreeing to write tennis, I quickly consumed myself with writing, and I loved it. Little did I know that four years later I’d have written more than 430 articles — second most in Technician history, by the way — and held a total of seven different writer and editor positions.

I continued to fall deeper into the hole, becoming assistant sports editor and soon enough, sports editor with my best friend Ben Ellis. I unknowingly, and now thankfully, signed my life away to Technician for the next three years of my life.

To Ben, the Bert to my Ernie, thank you for the endless memories running sports meetings, covering games, but more importantly watching NC State sports. From football to basketball to baseball and almost everything else in between, I’ll forever associate my time with the paper’s best section, Technician Sports, with you. Let’s go grab Bojangles soon.

I was nonstop. No matter the time, day or place, if I wasn’t writing a sports article I was editing one. It consumed me. At the time I liked it — writing, editing and publishing articles for hours on end, many times taking up all my time on Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays was a part of the grind. I was happy to have something to work so hard at, something I was actively affecting, leading and advancing, even if it had me on my computer while hanging out with my friends, or locked away in my room while other things were happening. In hindsight, it wasn’t healthy and may have hurt some relationships with my friends, but on and on I went, further down the rabbit hole.

The next tumble down that hole came in Jameson Wolf and I’s campaign for editor-in-chief — a crazy thought considering I hadn’t even been a sports editor for a whole year. However, with just a handful of Vol. 103 editors sticking around for Vol. 104, we were proud to take a leap of faith from running our respective sections to running the whole operation. Once again, I had no clue what I was in for.

All of a sudden, I was editor-in-chief. Getting Vol. 104 off the ground with some of my best friends, Jameson and Emily Vespa, was hectic, but so much fun.

While fun and flashy, leading Technician was not for the faint of heart. I quickly learned this job was far more about managing than actually editing. But thanks to Jameson, no matter how bad it got, I wasn’t alone in it. So thank you, Jameson, for being a great editor-in-chief and a great friend. You always brought a relaxing presence, a thoughtfulness to the job that inspired me to keep on going during Vol. 104. I can’t wait to see you and Harry in Boston soon.

Next goes a big thank you to our advisor, Ben McNeely, for showing us the way through these tough times where we simply didn’t know where to go, and for always being in my corner.

During my time at Vol. 104 I finally got truly serious about journalism. All of a sudden, news was on the front of my mind. It was here I learned the true importance of what we did and why journalism as a public service and as a profession is so important. From reporting on campus suicides to Poe Hall to a surreal pair of Final Four runs, I’m proud to say we transformed the way Technician did news. We weren’t just reporting the news, in many ways we were leading it by priding ourselves on accurate, ethical, transparent journalism.

A lot of that effort would not have been possible without Emily, an unstoppable and sometimes frightening force of journalism that inspired me and the rest of the volume to keep doing better and better work. Along with being a workhorse and our resident court jester, she almost had us digging up soil and ripping off caulk outside of Poe Hall under the cover of night and joining a lawsuit — both of which were separate events. Thank you Emily for all the times we were kicking ass one minute and being thrown into giggle jail the next.

My next thanks goes to Ethan Rimolt, who, along with Jameson, Emily and a few others I’ll get to shortly, offered me moments of respite from the tough moments of Technician. One of my best friends, I’ll forever be thankful for all those moments of impressions and general uncontrollable laughter we had. You were by my side since day one of Vol. 103 and had your own fair share of struggles in the zany, often-draining world of Student Media photography, so I knew I could talk to you about all of mine in the managerial world of Technician.

For all the great moments I had with you all in Vol. 104, that was by far the toughest year of my life. One thing after another, I faced situation after situation that eroded both my mental health and love for the publication. Some of it was self-inflicted, but a lot of it wasn’t. There were so many days where I felt defeated, dejected and surrounded by those who didn’t care about Technician to the extent I did.

Here, I learned the ugly lesson of learning how to let go, how to care less about something for your own good. While he’ll never, ever read this, nor probably think about me again, thank you to my Vol. 103 Managing Editor, Wade Bowman, who taught me that lesson. You don’t know it, but I did and still look up to you sometimes, so thank you for being a tough older brother to me.

Despite many near-breaking points in the last two volumes, there were those that made it all better, those who showed the dedication and willpower to make this publication the best it possibly could be. Thank you Justin, for being relentlessly ambitious in your reporting and need to hold the University and other, higher powers accountable. You’re a great friend who brought endless moments of joy and levity when it was needed the most.

To Colby Trotter, Aidan Carlson and Connor VanDerMark, thank you for being an amazing trio of sports editors, the best I could’ve asked for. Aside from putting on shenanigan after shenanigan in the office and always bringing a smile to our faces, you did the sports section justice. Thank you Aidan for being a great friend to me, even outside of the office. And Connor, I know you’ll continue to advance the Tech Sports legacy in Vol. 106.

Thank you specifically, to Colby, for coming from the rafters in Vol. 104 to take over the sports section. You not only did the job, but excelled. I can easily say that your passion, hard work and reporting hunger made you one of the best sports editors in Technician history — even better than me.

However, there was a time that I felt emptier than I ever had before. And a lot of those feelings stemmed from Technician.

I was exhausted. I was burned out. I was tired of pouring all I had into Technician and only receiving a fraction of the care I put into it from other people and other forces around me. I constantly thought, ‘Imagine all the things I could be doing, all the fun I could be having, how much less anxiety I would have,’ without the all-consuming, ever-present and penetrating beast Technician had morphed into.

But I still kept crawling back to my codependent relationship with Technician. It left me battered and bruised, feeling like it didn’t care to look after me like I looked after it. What was my reward for it all? Was any of this even worth it?

Yes, it was.

Little did I know Technician had one more fateful twist in store for me. The one that made it all worth it. The one that saved me from itself.

I realize now that my story at Technician isn’t about the amount of articles I wrote, the editions printed and certainly not about the amount of times I lost faith in all of it. It was about my former news editor, my current editor-in-chief and most importantly, my best friend, Kate Denning.

To my Kate, thank you. I found someone, something more important than Technician. I was so used to consuming myself with it all to the point of exhaustion, and you quickly erased that. All of a sudden I had perspective, and I had found my ‘Why.’

A kind, strong woman that knew what she wanted, Kate took what she helped establish in Vol. 104 as the best news editor this publication has ever seen and ran with it, then becoming editor-in-chief of Vol. 105, a better one than I ever could be. You experienced your own share of pains at Technician, ones even worse than mine, and every time you emerged stronger. I always smile when I see our names on the editor-in-chief plaque near the door of the office. I couldn’t be prouder of us for that.

Besides all that, Kate is the most impressive Technician writer and editor I have ever seen in my time at this publication. With a remarkable work ethic, endless willpower and a burning desire to impact the world through responsible and thoughtful journalism, you are a journalist through and through. You inspire me each and every day, both in and outside of Technician. Consistently amazed by you and endlessly proud of you, I know you’ll do great things in the world of journalism, and I can’t wait to be by your side for all of them. You deserve so much more recognition and praise than I can include in words here. But for now, this’ll do.

Intelligent, quick-witted, driven and thoughtful, you quickly became my entire life. Working with you this past year has been a dream, and it’s bittersweet to see it all end. For being my person, the force that constantly drives me to be better and my peace after a long print night, I love you. I couldn’t have done any of this without you.

From harrowing board meetings to Belltower celebrations, I’ve been through it all in my time at Technician and in college at NC State. But my story at Technician was, and will always be, about finding you.

And for that I owe this place everything.