In our modest four-room office, there is a smooth wooden table where Gainesville Sun publishers from the golden days once sat. It is long and official-looking. It seats eight, but normally there’s 12 chairs tucked in close, shoulder to shoulder, familiar with sweaters and sports bras and T-shirts leaned against their backs rather than suit jackets.
Its surface has been graced by fraying cardboard pizza boxes and old pens running out of ink and iconic alligator stuffed animals and the bottoms of overheating laptops, their fans running on overdrive. It has heard many rounds of laughter at the dry humor of student journalists. It has taken beatings when they slap the table in triumph or in frustration. It has also seen many tears.
This table, this office and this paper is where I have found home over the years. I have spent four semesters dedicated to it — not a ton in comparison to others, who sometimes linger much longer. But it brought me in and refused to let go with a pressure that was at times suffocating, but more often fiercely comforting. The Alligator is many things: a diligent very-close-to-professional newspaper, a training ground, a braintrust of fresh and thriving ideas in a “dying” industry, a target of vitriol and admiration, a family. I have seen its facets as if I were staring into a precious crystal, carefully honed and carved to help the people within it shine. Because that’s what lies between the newsprint pages, woven in the words, floating just beneath a byline. The people.
I am constantly fascinated by the people here. There’s something about those who have chosen journalism as their path in life. They’re good at asking questions. Editors meetings this semester often ran long because we were trading stories about how we had grown up, how we saw the world and how we were relearning to understand it as journalists. We came from very different places, different Florida cities, different upbringings, different religions. But we were united in one purpose: Tell the truth. Tell people’s stories. Do it fast and well and do the very best we could. Unsurprisingly, I have many thank yous to dole out to the people I sat at that table with.
To the editors I was so lucky to work with this semester: you have my unending well of gratitude. We were lucky enough to inherit a semester fresh off plenty of national exposure thanks to those who came before us, but that comes with its own burdens.
Thank you to Sophia Bailly, our fearless university editor, who brought a bright smile and a can-do attitude to one of the paper’s most difficult jobs (and who put her stuffed cat in the microwave for us). To Bailey Diem, our metro editor, always with a sense of calm and little quips to catch us off-guard. To Kylie Williams, our enterprise editor, with her watchdog attitude and her “freak behind the eyes.” To Alex Burns, our Avenue editor, whose fashion sense I am always admiring and who leaped into action to do some writing herself. To Megan Howard, our opinions editor, who dealt with editing this column and who was unafraid to be the paper’s Uber driver when we desperately, desperately needed it. To Madilyn Gemme, our multimedia editor, always reminding us to relax and watch some SNL skits on stressful Sundays. To Nicole Beltran, our senior news director and Caiman editor, who was the brightest light in the newsroom even when she was rushing to translate a story last minute. To Max Tucker and Jack Meyer, our sports editors this semester: holy sh*t, guys. The two of you are unstoppable.
Thank you to Aurora Martinez, my very first editor at this paper. I don’t know where I would be without your gentle-but-firm guidance. I try to emulate you every day. And to Christian Casale and Peyton Harris and Claire Grunewald, some of my fellow reporters on that Fall 2022 university desk — thank you for bearing with me as I came out of my shell. I hope we stay friends for a very long time.
Thank you to the small but mighty group of reporters who worked with me as their metro editor in Fall 2023. Kat Tran, Zoey Thomas, Jordan Ramos, I appreciate your efforts to represent at Alligator functions and our own little socials. It is by far the semester I look back on the most fondly and proudly. Metro nation lives in my heart.
Alissa Gary and Ella Thompson were also among their ranks, but they deserve a paragraph of their own, because they were my sisters-in-arms this semester as managing editors. Together, we were “big three dogging” our way through the Fall. Alissa, I am so proud of how far we have come together from our first few days starting at the paper to now. I needed your impressive memory, your careful guidance, your neverending eagerness to get better. And Ella — I needed your news judgment, your down-to-earth attitude and your affinity for never losing sight of the faces in a story. The paper is in safe hands with you.
And to Aidan Bush, editor before me: I am so glad I met you. I am so glad you managed to spend time in positions I would later take on, because it gave me an excuse to listen to your wisdom in the form of stories, told expertly and hilariously. You have been the definition of patient and kind, and I am incredibly lucky to have you as my closest confidante. Spending three semesters working alongside you at this paper has been the highlight of the past two years. I missed you this go-around.
I would very much like to tell these people’s stories someday too. They are so strong. Funny. Vibrant. Based on the anecdotes that make my jaw drop on a weekly basis, I don’t think it would be a boring read. How could you hear about someone getting screamed at by a communications staffer and not read on?
If it isn’t clear already, I hold a lot of love for this place. Leaving is bittersweet, knowing I’ve reached a goal I had set for myself by the end of my first semester at the paper and knowing that life will go on when I’m not here. This place taught me who I wanted to become. I know it will continue to do so for others — I just won’t be here to see it.
To those who will walk in the office doors next semester, next year, next election cycle, on and on and on: love this place, and it will love you back. It will give you a sense of purpose. It will give you people who you will form lifelong bonds with, whether you like it or not.
Pull out a chair. Take a seat at the table and make a paper. I’ll miss you.
Siena Duncan was the Fall 2024 Editor-in-Chief.
Siena Duncan is the Fall 2024 Editor-in-Chief of the Alligator. She's interned for the Salt Lake Tribune, the Tampa Bay Times and POLITICO. In her spare time, she loves to take walks to see the cows by her apartment and add more to her sketchbook.
