Dear Newsies and Yerds,

You have yelled it at me in convention center hallways. You have shouted it at me in Indiana gymnasiums. I have smiled as you screamed it at me in the subways of Washington, D.C. and even here on campus.

You call me “Dad.” And it makes me so proud.

A few years ago, after taking a tribe of you to conventions and summer workshops, some of you began calling me “Dad.” I am sure that I put on a humble (maybe even annoyed) front when you yelled it out: “DAD!” But the truth is that it’s the proudest I could ever be as a teacher.

In fact, your willingness to learn alongside me over the past 12 school years, to weather my goofiness, to work harder than I ever did, to push back against my bad ideas—all of that stuff saved me as a teacher. Without students like you, I would be back at Pickerman’s Deli making sandwiches (right where I was working when you all first started stalking me: the new journalism teacher).

When I started 12 years ago, I had no business teaching. Not at this school. Not with my lack of experience. I had never stood in front of my own classroom. My lesson plans imploded daily. The top story on the first edition of the paper had no byline at all. I accidentally made students cry just by editing their first drafts.

I was a clueless, comedic mess of teaching pratfalls, one after the other.

At my very first Back to School Night, a mother approached me. She shook my hand and looked me in the eye, and said, “You ARE young,” relaying what her daughter had obviously told her about me.

Almost every day during my first year, I would finish teaching and look around at my disaster of a classroom. Scraps of construction paper everywhere. The desks tossed into a jumble. The computers unable to print. The whiteboard covered in unintelligible notes. On my desk, a note from the Teresian photo editor who decided to drop the class. A poster from an anonymous student asking me (the married teacher) to go to the Teresian Dance with them.

The familiar environment of the daily newspaper newsroom seemed far away from this new and uncomfortable outpost at the front of a classroom at St. Teresa’s.

But then you, the students, came to my rescue. And I’ll never forget it.

During my second year of advising the Dart, I walked down to the Goppert Center after school. The entire varsity, JV and freshman basketball teams sat in the bleachers. The gym floor was quiet, with only a few voices echoing from the balcony overlooking the court. Each student reclined on the seats behind her with a Dart open in front of her. Reading. Silently.

After a year of working on the newspaper and yearbook, this was my greatest pay-off: students using their free time after school together to choose to read our newspaper. More than 10 years later, I still have giddy pride seeing a classroom full of students silently reading the Teresian or Dart.

Then your work rescued me in more public accomplishments: four Pacemakers winners, four more Pacemaker finalist nominations, two Missouri student journalists of the year and countless MIPA and JEMKC awards. While not the most important part of our work, let’s be honest: we’re kind of competitive, and the awards keep us going.

And oh, how your sense of humor has kept work fun. You were gullible enough to believe there was a printing press in my basement and that there was a serial plagiarist on staff. You also were silly enough to craft a stuffed bear out of newspaper and leave it on my porch before I scared you from a hiding place beside the house. You duct taped the the spooky yearbook doll named Kandi to the front door of my house, complete with Herff Jones tattoo and an emotional letter. And yes, you love playing with the publications parachute just as much as I do.

And there’s more. I keep a file in the bottom drawer of my desk, and many of you have contributed to it. Inspired by my teaching mentor Rich Wilson, I started a Rainy Day File. Your thank-you notes, your funny jokes and your slideshow petitioning to go to the Friday night convention dance are all in there. On my sluggish days, you might have noticed me paging through my Rainy Day File with a grateful smile.

And your final act of support for me is happening right now. As we hire a new adviser, as I move to KU, you all have been gracious, congratulatory and optimistic. You are great until the end.

For all of this, thank you so much for trusting in me. You tore your page design apart and put it back together on my advice. You interviewed that intimidating source after your first draft feedback. You traveled to State with the team and your camera. You had the tough conversation with a peer about missing deadline. And you met your deadlines.

You made me, the forever clueless rookie adviser, look like I knew what I was doing.

You newsies! You yerds! You DNO kids! I am going to miss you so much.

Your proud publications dad,

Mr. Thomas