Almost four years ago, I visited Room 1148, the newspaper classroom, for the first time. The newspaper adviser, Lisa Roskens, held a series of meetings for students coming on to her staff and other classes she taught. Although I only signed up to be in a prerequisite class, I learned a scheduling mistake placed me in the newspaper leadership class. After my first day, I decided to join the Eagle Nation Online staff, and everything changed.

Now, I’ve risen through leadership roles and developed so many professional skills through this amazing program. I’ve published over 60 articles in my time here, and I’ve learned so much and met so many people from publishing each of those. I would recommend joining this staff to any student who loves telling stories and wants to grow skills that will help them in their future careers. Being on the Eagle Nation Online and Eagle Nation Times staff has been tons of fun, built my resume, prepared me for college and my life after that.

During my time on staff and in high school in general, I’ve learned some things I think could benefit younger students.

First, don’t be afraid to explore and be in multiple extracurricular groups if that’s something you’re interested in. In all of my four years here, I have been in both newspaper and the school choir along with plenty of other smaller clubs. Many people think that they can only be in one major extracurricular at a time, but those interested will be able to develop their passions if they want to be in more than one of these groups at Prosper. It is also possible to manage having high grades with being in clubs. It just takes some extra planning to balance everything.

This one is obvious, but don’t procrastinate. I will be the first to tell you that I am a big procrastinator. I think I procrastinated probably every assignment I’ve ever had in high school to the last possible moment. Don’t do that. It caused me many sleepless night and an insane amount of stress. While it may be tempting to wait on starting an assignment until the day it’s due, getting it done early will help your well-being.

Finally, if you really want to achieve something, you can if you invest time into it. I went into newspaper with two big goals this year: starting a marketing program at Eagle Nation Times and winning a competition at the Academic UIL state meet. I spent the entire third quarter of this year just planning how to get an ad system up and running. It took a lot of effort from me and others, but, in our final issue of Eagle Nations Times for the year, we sold some senior ads. As for my other goal, I competed in the Copy Editing event, earning first place at both districts and regionals. I really wanted to get a full sweep of first place at every level of competition, so I spent several hours doing practice tests and studying “The Associated Press Stylebook,” which the event is based on. After all this hard work, I ended up being the UIL Copy Editing state champion. You can achieve anything you want to if you really put the effort in.

I’d like to end this piece off with thanking some people that have been integral to my success at Prosper High School. First off, thank you to my fellow staff members. I’ve loved working with all of you and seeing your talents grow wildly over the time I’ve known each of you. Thank you to my fellow editorial board members for your planning and everything else you do for these publications. None of what we’ve accomplished this year would have been possible without you guys. Thank you to anyone who read any of the stories on this website or picked up a copy of Eagle Nation Times. You are the reason we publish, and your support means the world to everyone on staff. Thank you to my family for supporting me in literally everything I do. Thank you to Justin and Max for talking with me during newspaper and making the class a bit more fun. Thank you to my choir directors, Crystal Chamberlain and Tate Keen, for supporting me through my time in choir and helping me develop musical skill. Thank you to all my friends for sticking by me and growing alongside me. Finally, thank you so much to Mrs. Roskens for accepting me onto the staff at such a young age. You’ve given me so many opportunities to develop and show off my skills. Your guidance has contributed to my success more than anything else. To everyone I just thanked, I sincerely love you all and will miss you very deeply. Thank you for everything.

Signing off one last time,

Jake Radcliffe, Chief Executive Officer