I told my teachers the other day that I was going to be gone.  The natural question to that statement was “Where are you going?” to which I proudly replied: “Regionals.”

Yes, Regionals.  I usually say that in the golf season, but this occasion was different.  I was going to KSPA Regionals. Write-offs and carry-ins – my kind of fun.  Some people would think differently – that voluntary writing would be a drag,  but I was excited.

Walking into the building on the KU campus, I saw “journalists” everywhere.  Kids from the area were sprawled all over the floor on laptops, grasping notebooks and looking serious for the competition.

I had never been to this type of competition before.  I didn’t know what to expect, but I was ready to compete. All that I could do was to try my best.

I was in the first session for newspaper sports writing.  I walked into the room with a fellow
Harbinger member and sat in the back row.  As people walked in, I scouted them out and asked myself: “Do they really look like a sports writer?”  I know, that probably wasn’t the nicest thing to do, but that was my natural instinct.  I tried to single out which people looked good, from the others that seemed careless.

For an hour and a half, I wrote. I thought of nothing else but the topic at hand – a boys’ tennis preview that I was supposed to cover. There were some great original names in the piece like – Rafael Nadal and Billie J. King.

It was a fun little topic, but I had quite a hard time getting the length right — 250 words.  I counted my story the first time, then I was filled with disappointment. I was 30 words over.  I wrote it again, in pen – not a good idea.  I made more mistakes, but had to make do with scratching certain words out. It was a challenge, but it was fun and in the end, it was fine.

My story was done.

The competition is definitely something I want to do again next year. To compete and do something that is actually intellectually challenging was fun, and I can’t wait to challenge myself like that again.

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