For as long as I can remember, I knew that I wanted to be a writer. In third grade, I started writing and illustrating stories on loose leaf paper. My mom always beamed every time I came up to her and read her my stories. "Excellent job, Treasure," my mom would say to me. "I'm definitely hanging up this story on our refrigerator wall."
In fourth grade, I started learning about how much of a purpose my writing would have on people. Six months after Hurricane Katrina, I wrote another loose-leaf paper story about the friends I made in Lantana, Texas, which is a suburb 40 miles north of Dallas. My teacher at that time, Mrs. Deville, was probably more excited than I was when she found out that I wrote a story about her and my classmates. She even spent a couple of days reading my story in front of the entire class. I never expected her to do that, but I was so happy that she did. When we reached the end of the story, she hugged me with tears in her eyes and told me what an honor and blessing it was that I was in her class.
As a freshman at Mandeville High, I already knew that I wanted to be a sports writer. Six months before I started high school, the New Orleans Saints won their first Super Bowl in franchise history. From that moment on, I always dreamed about being in a postgame press conference and taking notes about a game-winning touchdown pass that Drew Brees threw to Jimmy Graham in the final seconds to beat the Falcons in the Superdome. It was also cool to note that Coach Sean Payton lived right down the street from my high school.
There was a newspaper class at Mandeville High, and our newspaper was called "The Crest." I didn't know about the newspaper class at the time, but I continued to write stories and even wrote a five-act play about the life of the Manning family for fun. The first act was about Archie and Olivia adjusting to new life in New Orleans. The second act was about Peyton and Cooper having the time of their lives at Isidore Newman, as well as Cooper's spinal stenosis condition. The third act was about Peyton and Eli's phenomenal college football careers at Tennessee and Ole Miss, respectively. The fourth act was about the Manning Bowls and the Super Bowl MVPs. And finally, the fifth act was about Peyton and Eli tackling a new chapter in their lives: fatherhood.
At the end of my sophomore year of high school, I finally signed up for the newspaper class. For the first few weeks of school, I was the only girl in the sports department, but then my newspaper teacher approached me and thought that it would be better if I wrote in the entertainment department. To be honest, I actually enjoyed writing entertainment articles slightly more than I enjoyed writing sports articles. After all, I was a Talented Theatre student.
My claim to fame in my high school newspaper class was writing a front-page April Fools article about how one of our baseball coaches was returning to Mandeville from Hammond to be a head coach. Three weeks after my "fake" article was published, it actually became a real article. That baseball coach, who was also my fine arts survey and health teacher, came back from Hammond, and is still the head coach of our high school's baseball team.
A year and a half ago, I became an Odyssey writer. I've written 89 articles over that time period, and I'm sad to say that this will be my 90th and final one. I've had an amazing group of managing editors, editors-in-chief and other Odyssey writers who inspired me to be the best writer that I could be. I'm so thankful for all of my family members and friends who have liked and shared my articles on social media. And most of all, I'm thankful to serve such an awesome God who will never withhold His promises from me.
Writing is my passion. For those of you guys who have a passion, never give up on that passion. Do what you love and love what you do. This may be my final time writing an Odyssey article, but I will never stop being a writer. I just love it too much.
