At summer camp, I would cover a composition book with construction paper and ‘self publish’ scary stories to read to my own spooky story club: a group of three, fellow 8-year-old girls obsessed with and terrified of monsters and ghosts. The club did not go far, but my love of storytelling persisted as I entered the University of New Hampshire (UNH) as a journalism major.
The UNH campus did not have the same monstrous appeal of my stories a decade prior. It instead turned out to be an annoyingly beautiful, quintessential New England campus with caring professors, lifelong friends, and a 100-year-old student newspaper that would become my constant along the way.
I started The New Hampshire (TNH) as a freshman contributing writer in Professor Lisa Miller’s newswriting class. My first piece on the exhibition ‘Myths Retold’ at the former UNH Museum of Art (MOA), blended my love for the UNH classics department with the detailed feature writing skills Professor Miller mentored.
‘Myths Retold’ featured a collection of Rosemarie Beck’s painted scenes from classical mythology, and their respective labels written by students of Dr. Paul Robertson’s advanced mythology class.
As I curated the ‘Myths Retold’ feature with anecdotes from Robertson, his students, and the MOA staff, its throughline, the symbiotic relationships between students and art, and art and myth emerged. However, the full importance of fossilizing this interaction through journalism was not completely clear to me until the museum was dissolved during UNH’s budget cuts. When we cannot visit the people and places of the past, we visit stories–and I am so happy to have memorialized the MOA and its dedicated students and staff within the TNH archives.
Since my first story at TNH, I have served as a Staff Writer, Editor, Advice Columnist, and this year’s Executive Editor. Though I claim to have come a long way from my disbanded scary story group, I still found ways to incorporate the peculiar into my work. I produced Wildcat Word podcast episodes about UNH campus fears and roommate nightmares, explored the Myth of Smith Hall, and the Betty and Barney Hill collection at Dimond Library.
TNH has been through a lot of changes these past couple years: navigating a new website, ushering in the new journalism major, and figuring out how to reach students in a tangible way.
We have reported extensively on historic campus issues such as the campus carry bill and the university’s continued financial cuts, attended two regional awards ceremonies, and held the inaugural TNH alumni mixer. I could not be more proud of this team and what we have accomplished this year, and the legacy we continue to hold intertwined in UNH’s student culture.
My life’s mosaic will continue to develop in tiny, shiny shards of experiences. I do not have the luxury of choosing the color of these pieces, or the greater picture they will form. However, I am in charge of connecting these pieces throughout my life to make meaning. From this meaning I can derive purpose. I want to recognize that every story and stage contributed to the greater picture.
Signing off,
Sophia Schichtmann
Executive Editor
