I’d bet a lot people right now are thinking, “another year, another group of Purple Quill writers,” like it’s going to be the same as every other year. I, for one, see something other than the usual group of writers that our school paper gets. I see ambition that will bring this current staff to the level that a staff for the 100th year should be on. Let me explain how I came to this conclusion.

It’s no surprise that it’s our 100th year, and with that 100th year, many parts of our school are getting special treatments to make this year just that: special.

Going into Mr. Rogers’ journalism class for the first time, the thought that the Purple Quill could be getting this treatment didn’t even cross my mind. Well, it didn’t until I saw the amazing editing skills of Aidan Metz ’23, who was the mind behind out staff profile pictures.

Upon seeing his newest intro animation for an ENN show, I knew I had to get a deeper look into the passion behind the fellas around me in this class, and I looked no further than to start by asking Aidan about his goals in the Purple Quill.

“We need to say, claim, and do something bold,” said Metz, speaking on behalf of the whole staff, “Grab the readers attention and keep them interested.”

Being bold is something that our current staff does not struggle with. Indeed, our mix of loud and quiet personalities is really what makes the staff shine, and although it may sometimes be to his chagrin, Mr. Rogers lets us show our personalities in many ways.

Some of us choose to portray our personalities through our staff positions, with characters like Evan James ’23 choosing to take the role of “enforcer” and Nickey Gutzwiller ’23 choosing to be the “dawg” of the Quill. What entails of those two positions, I am yet to find out.

Others choose to give a hint about themselves through their staff quotes, in which Luke Hafner ’24 includes a quote from Michael Scott. After seeing all these interesting quotes that our writers had used, Luke’s quotes stuck with me because of how it was a quote with a literal message, delivered by an unlikely character.

I then asked Luke about his intentions with the Quill based off his quote, when he said he aims to inform the people about lesser known topics around Elder, the community, and the world.

Without a doubt, Luke’s goal to use lesser known topics in his pieces  truly is taking that “risk” that Mr. Scott mentions in his staff profile quote. With that being said, I have to mention my own goals and how they work with the goals of the staff as a whole.

I am a person who desires to see my work making a real difference. Whether it is making someone laugh, think, or even get upset, I always enjoy when my work has a real-world impact. I believe I share this trait with many of my staff-mates: we all write to make a difference, and we love when we hear feedback about it.

I think that love for impacting our community is something that will work hand-in-hand with our individually bold styles as we create more and more pieces for our readers to digest. Seeing that boldness and passion before we had even started writing was what brought me to think of how special we could be as a squad. In all, I think those two traits that this group shares are what sets us apart from other staffs, and our quirks and attitude toward our jobs might make the articles a bit easier to read.

So, with that, this is a special welcome to Elder’s 100th school year from the guys on the hopefully special 100th year Purple Quill staff.