Brantley Banner Article of the Decade – Gregified

Greg was on the newspaper staff when I started teaching the class. It was his second year on staff and the adjustment to a new teacher and new expectations for the publication was a rocky transition. Greg missed deadlines, ignored word counts, and chose to do math homework in place of his assignments. After miscommunications, poor grades, and yelling Greg became my news and copy editor. He still wrote “Greg Stories” which were filled with facts and exceeded any logical word length for a student newspaper, but he started making Newspaper a priority. 

His final story for publication was titled “Gregified” which was a reflection on his time as a member of The Brantley Banner staff and evoked emotions as a staff that we didn’t know were there. To an outsider it may not make sense why I chose this to be the article of the decade because there have been hundreds of newsworthy journalistic stories written, but to me this stood out as a personal achievement in more ways than one. In true Greg form it was turned in late and the longest story on the page, but it spoke the truth. It was written from the heart and left a lasting impression on not just me, but the entire staff.