August 21, 2018. I walked into Bethel Park High School for the first time as a student here. It was pretty overwhelming coming from a small, Christian school where everybody knew everyone. Now, instead of being one of the top dogs in a small school, I was a small fish in a huge pond.

I wandered around until I stumbled my way into my first period class, which happened to be journalism. The funny thing about it was that I had almost zero interest in taking journalism when I was selecting my classes. There was another class I wanted to take, and the way my schedule worked, I had to take this class, too.

What I did not realize was that it would end up being my favorite elective I had ever taken throughout high school.

On that first day when I walked into class, I honestly did not know what to expect. I pulled out a notebook and started listening to Mr. Allemang as he told us what we would be doing and how to do it. I was a little nervous getting started, but I was able to do some good projects my sophomore year with Joey Bova.

Mr. Allemang also helped me find my specialty in journalism: sports writing.

For three years, I basically only wrote about sports. Thankfully, Mr. Allemang was fine with that, and I had a lot of fun writing about them.

Other than writing about sports, one of my favorite things I did for journalism was the “Matt and Matty Show” with Matt McGrath. We talked about college football every week, and we also had a few episodes about March Madness and pro football.

I also had some great moments within class, too. I had a blast filling out brackets with Dan, Matt, and Mr. Allemang before March Madness. We also had a great time making fun of Mr. Allemang for saying March Matness was better than March Madness.

In the end, this class would not have been my favorite if it was not for Mr. Allemang. He helped me in my writing, and you know you could always count on him.

For any underclassmen that may be reading this, take journalism. You will have way more fun than you expect.

For one final time, this is Matthew Szymanowski signing off.