Lauren Menker, Olivia Michelsen, Erin Morgan, Sydney Mulford, David Shuppert
BUSINESS MANAGER
Austin Smith HEAD
LETTER FROM THE EDITOR
Dear
It’s been a minute! Whether you’ve been with us from the start or you’re just picking up your first issue, welcome to the sixteenth edition of The Miami Student Magazine (TMSM).
As I sit down to write this letter, I’m reminded of the first time I ever walked into a TMSM meeting. I was nervous, unsure of what I could contribute and wondered whether I belonged to this community. Now, in my final semester, that uncertainty feels like a lifetime ago.
This issue marks the end of my time at Miami and with TMSM — a bittersweet goodbye to the place that’s taught me more than I ever could’ve imagined. I’ve learned how to lead a team, shape a narrative and most importantly, trust my instincts.
Fittingly, this issue is about reflection: looking back, holding on, letting go and imagining what’s next. Whether it’s Chloe Southard revisiting a school bus full of memories in “Tales from Bus 22,” Stella Powers cleaning out her childhood bedroom or Molly Fahy writing about life after cancer, each piece finds its power in personal truth.
You’ll also find some critical looks at the place we call home. Evan Stefanik asks hard questions about Miami’s direction in his reported opinion, while Reece Hollowell takes us into the past to remember Oxford’s beloved Princess Theater.
And this time, we’re trying something new — our very first piece of fiction. Kasey Turman’s murder mystery, set right here at Miami, is suspenseful in all the right ways. We hope it’s the first of many stories that blur the line between memory and imagination.
discomfort and share their worlds without sugarcoating. That’s what makes this issue so special. It’s not just a reflection of the semester, but a reflection on the world and our place in it, flaws and beauty alike.
As always, this letter wouldn’t be complete without recognizing the outstanding team behind this publication. To our writers — you are the heart of this magazine. Your willingness to be bold and vulnerable is what makes every page matter. Thank you for trusting us with your stories.
A huge shoutout to our wonderful art directors, Caitlin Dominski and Caitlin Curran. You may share a name, but each of you brings something entirely your own to the table. Alongside the rest of the design team, you’ve created something that gives every page life.
Thank you to our editorial team: Elizabeth Martin, Makayla Parker, Taylor Powers, Hannah Sander and Elizabeth Smith. Your commitment made sure every piece was polished, and I’m eternally grateful to each of you.
Finally, I would quite literally not have my sanity without my managing editors, Sam Norton and Stella Powers. Thank you both for showing me what it means to lead, for supporting me through every bump in the road and for being the people I could always count on. I wouldn’t be here without you — not just as editors, but as friends who made this experience truly meaningful.
To our readers: I hope this issue makes you feel something — nostalgia, curiosity, joy or even a little discomfort. I hope that something in these pages catches you off guard, stays with you or maybe even challenges you. That’s what good stories do, and that’s what TMSM has always done for me.
Thank you for letting me be part of something so special. With that, I’m delighted to present Issue XVI of The Miami Student Magazine.
Happy reading!
Maya Svec Editor-in-Chief
At TMSM, we are constantly striving to learn and grow, so your feedback is both welcomed, appreciated and encouraged. Please do not hesitate to reach out to the email provided below.
Reader, EIC.TheMiamiStudentMagazine@gmail.com
Across every story, one thing remains clear: our writers don’t shy away from the hard stuff. They dig deep, confront
My legs are crossed underneath me as I sit on the floral bedspread. A cup filled with Diet Coke sizzles on the bedside table. A movie sits paused on the TV in front of me.
It’s a Friday night, I’m 8 years old, and I’m staying the night at my grandparents' house –my dad’s parents.
I can hear my grandmother, Sugie, walking around the kitchen downstairs, searching for a bowl while the popcorn kernels burst open in the microwave. After a few minutes, I heard her make her way toward me. She greets me with a smile and a big bowl of fresh popcorn, placing it next to me with some napkins. She reaches for the remote to start the movie.
It could have been several different movies: Maybe we were continuing our “Harry Potter” marathon. Maybe she was showing me “Mamma Mia!,” one of her favorite musicals. Regardless of whatever lit up the screen, we would surely have a great time.
A few months later, I’m at my grandmother Nan’s house for a sleepover – my mom’s mom. While Sugie’s house was the definition of grandmother florals, Nan’s house was decorated with more neutral browns and tans. She had the big box TVs, the ones where if you touched the screen, you could feel the static.
I probably spent the day accompanying Nan while she worked – she ran a cleaning business – or we went to the movies and got Steak ‘n Shake after.
I watch “Codename: Spy Kids” or “The Powerpuff Girls” while I wait for her to come to bed. In the morning, I wake up to something I don’t recognize, like shows the networks played early when the children weren’t awake yet.
The funny thing is that I hated sleepovers when I was a kid. Yet, their houses were the only places where I could have a successful sleepover. I can’t explain exactly why, but my theory is that because I spent so much time at their houses, they felt like second homes to me.
I grew up with a small family circle; I only saw my distant relatives around the holidays. Both pairs of aunts and uncles and first cousins live out of state. So, I spent a lot of time with my grandparents. My grandmothers introduced
Design by Caitlin Dominski
Photos courtesy of Taylor Powers
me to my current interests and passions, and they shaped many parts of my personality.
They both passed at pivotal moments in my life, but I would not be who I am today without them.
Susan “Sugie” Fostine Powers was born Aug. 3, 1947, in Hamilton, Ohio. I had a speech impediment as a kid, so “Susan” ended up coming out as “Sugie.”
She had a sister, Joy, and a brother, Dennis. She graduated from the Hamilton School District and enjoyed water skiing at Coney Island and roller skating at Tri-Skateland as a kid. She met her future husband, Charles “Chas” Powers, at Tri-Skateland, as he lived above the rink.
Sugie’s house had floral wallpaper, and a bird feeder sat outside her kitchen window. We’d spend our breakfasts watching the birds have theirs, and we loved seeing red cardinals fly up. She had photos of her family everywhere, and there was always a preserved rose with a gold finish next to mine. I made sure to get that rose last year, and it sits in my room next to a jewelry case she gave me.
PERSONAL HISTORY
2022, at 74 years old. She had been battling it on and off for about 10 years; I remember her showing me some of her wigs.
I was a junior in high school. It was a Tuesday, and my mom came into my room before I went to bed, her arms crossed as she approached me.
“Sugie just died,” she told me while nodding.
It felt like a punch to the gut.
I knew Sugie had been moved to a nursing home. I had gone to her house a few days before she moved to celebrate my birthday. She looked different, and I could tell she wasn’t well. The COVID-19 pandemic made it so that I didn’t see her for some time. And when I did, her health steadily declined.
I was a year away from graduating high school, from going off to college to begin some of the best years of my life. I was about to experience so many “firsts” and so many “lasts,” and she wasn’t there for any of it.
She had three different careers throughout her life, but the main one was as a court stenographer at the Butler County Prosecutor's Office for roughly 30 years. She also worked at Avon and Lakota Plains Junior High School.
As an adult, she enjoyed line dancing, driving in her Corvette with Chas and going to the lake. But above all, she enjoyed spending time with her family and friends.
She had two children: Fawn (my aunt) and Charles “Chuck” (my dad). Her other grandchild besides me is Fawn’s son, Paxton.
Sugie died from breast cancer on March 29,
She didn’t see me graduate. She didn’t see me become editor-in-chief of my high school newspaper and pursue journalism in college. She didn’t see me perform in my high school’s spring musical, “Mamma Mia!” She didn’t see the dance solo I did during the show to “Slipping Through My Fingers.” She didn’t get to see “Wicked” become a movie.
I was excited when the movie was announced because it was one of the first musicals I saw live, thanks to Sugie. I started doing theater at 5 years old, but Sugie continued to grow that passion in me by showing me some of her favorites, like “Mamma Mia!” and “Wicked.”
you get while experiencing a movie with a bunch of strangers, everyone feeling and seeing the same things. Or maybe it’s because of how often I went there with my grandmothers.
Pamela “Nan” Pater was born May 25, 1952, in Hamilton, Ohio. She thought “grandma” and “nanna” sounded too old for her, so she compromised with “Nan.”
I told someone she was my aunt once, and I still have no idea why I said that. I think “aunt Nan” sounded better than “grandma Nan” in my mind, so I just called her Aunt Nan without knowing that an aunt and grandma were two different things. She didn’t mind because it made her sound young.
Nan was the youngest of four other siblings: George, Jim, Bob and Shirley. She was born when Shirley was in her 20s. She graduated from the Hamilton School District. She met her future husband, Timothy Pater, because they lived across the street from each other in high school. Her best friend was Janelle Klein, who commented on her online obituary, “my forever friend.” Nan played the violin, too.
She was a stay-at-home mom for a while but worked mostly administrative or secretarial jobs throughout her life for Ohio Casualty and Wendy’s corporate. She also had a cleaning business; oftentimes, I’d accompany her when she cleaned the Reading Rock Selection Center. I’d play with toys and explore the building while she worked.
She had two daughters: Amanda “Mandy” (my aunt) and Danielle “Dani” (my mom). She was married to Timothy for about 28 years before they separated during my mom’s senior year of high school. Her grandchildren include Logan and Noah – my aunt’s sons – and me.
Nan also died from breast cancer on Sept. 2, 2015. She was 63.
I was in middle school when it happened. My mom told me while we sat in her room. Through tears and laughter, she said one of the last things Nan said was she loved me more than she did my mom and her sister.
I didn’t think that was true, but my mom insists she said that to this day. Apparently, Nan said it's easier to love grandchildren because you don’t have to raise them yourself: You get to love them and spoil them, and then the parents get to deal with the messy bits.
Nan never disciplined or did any hard work. She was independent and strong. She was loving and supportive and never missed one game or event for her kids or me. But she was tough and had high expectations. She expected you to do the right thing all the time.
“‘You're a loving person, but I'm a little scared of you,’” my mom said about how people viewed Nan. But when it came down to it, no one was ever really scared of her.
While I didn’t inherit her scary demeanor, I inherited her height. She was around 5 feet, 2 inches tall, and I’m 5 feet tall.
Nan’s influence didn’t take effect until recent years. I’ve always been a people pleaser, and eventually, I grew tired of being seen as
I also used to be pretty codependent. It wasn’t that I couldn’t function on my own: It was that I felt uncomfortable doing so. When it was time to move into my first-year dorm, I was excited to be independent for once. I think that thrill of independence was Nan, cheering me on from above.
The other thing Nan and Sugie had in common was their love for their family.
They taught me to love and appreciate my family, even if we disagree or they annoy me. But they also taught me it’s OK to put myself first. At the end of the day, family is family.
Anyone who knows me knows I’m an extremely sentimental person. I have almost full memory boxes, and I recently took up scrapbooking to clean some of them out. It’s odd to me that when my grandmothers died, I didn’t think about taking something of theirs for memory’s sake.
Sure, my mom gave me some of Nan’s bells from her collection when she died, and we inherited her giant nutcracker collection too. And before Sugie passed, she bought me a jewelry set with a necklace, ring and earrings made with my birthstone, aquamarine, as a graduation gift since she knew she wouldn't make it until then.
But I didn’t take the initiative to go through their things and pull what I wanted. I was so focused on quickly getting past the grief that I didn’t stop to think about having a keepsake. I don’t blame myself for it; I had lost two of the most important people in my life.
A goal I’ve set for myself this year is to learn the route to their graves at the funeral home where they’re buried. I want to go alone one day and talk to them. I want to update them on everything.
Beyond the textbook:
In a field filled with challenges, one student finds her calling
By Maya Svec
Trigger warning: This article contains descriptions of medical trauma, self-harm and child abuse.
It was a quiet Monday evening in Oxford. The dark, rain-damp streets made it feel like the middle of the night. The sound of cars splashing against the wet pavement occasionally broke the silence.
Inside my college house, I hunched over my computer, trying to focus when a sudden beam of bright white light penetrated the blinds behind me. Expecting it to fade like a passing car, I waited, but the light lingered.
That’s when I knew she was home.
Curious, I lifted the shade with two fingers and peeked one eye through like a sleuth in the night. There she was, sitting alone in her black Honda CR-V.
My eyes were finally relieved when the lights flickered off. Expecting her to step out, I saw her face partially lit by the soft light of her phone. She was speaking passionately, but the look on her face wasn’t a happy one; if she wasn’t crying at that moment, it looked like she was about to.
As I attempted to refocus on my homework, I heard the car door slam. I glanced back out the window to see her get out of the car, grab her bag from the back seat and head towards the front door. Knowing she was about to walk in, I returned to my laptop.
The front door squeaked open.
“Oh hey,” I said, trying to keep my cool.
“Hey,” she said back.
“You’re back late. How was it?” I asked.
“I honestly don’t want to talk about it. I’m exhausted, I'll talk to you tomorrow.”
“OK, night.”
As she walked away, I sank deeper into the couch, wondering what had happened this time.
The next day, I sat on my porch doing work when a burst of laughter broke my focus. I looked up to see three girls walking towards my house. I only recognized one of them: Kylie.
“Hey, how was class?” I asked as she approached.
“Same old,” she shrugged.
As she went on a tangent about some intricate heart failure protocol she didn’t understand, I couldn’t help but think of what I had witnessed the night before. Her face, lit by the faint light of her phone, caught up in something so intense.
Why was she in such distress? Who was she talking to? Why did she get home later than usual?
So I asked.
“Oh, by the way, are you OK? I saw you on the phone in the car before you came in last night. Were you crying?”
Kylie’s face softened.
“Oh yeah, I was on the phone with my mom,” she paused. “Clinical was just so scary last night. I genuinely don’t know if I can do it anymore. I feel like I’m going crazy.”
Kylie’s not one to show emotion. She doesn’t get worked up by drama, let alone school. She’s strong, confident and I’ve rarely seen anything shake her. But last night had clearly been different.
That night at her psych clinical rotation, Kylie was
Design by Caitlin Curran
assigned to sit with a suicidal patient. All night. Things got out of hand, and the woman got hold of a pencil to cut herself.
“There was blood everywhere,” she recalled. “On the floor, on her legs. Literally everywhere. We had to do a squat and cough.”
A squat and cough is an invasive search method used in special institutions to check for hidden objects. In this case, a patient is ordered to squat down and cough to reveal any objects hidden in the anal or vaginal canal.
That night, Kylie witnessed a bloody pencil fall out from underneath the patient.
Kylie Pfeifer is a senior nursing student at Miami University, where she’s part of the highly competitive undergraduate program. Only around 80 students are directly admitted each year.
Kylie wanted to be in the medical field from a very young age. With five of her closest relatives working as nurses, it was almost inevitable.
Her great aunt dedicated 57 years to Christ Hospital in Cincinnati, where she eventually became vice president. Her grandma spent 53 years as a scrub and bedside nurse at St. Luke Hospital in Kentucky. Her mom worked as a nurse for four years, but retired when she had kids. Her aunt has been at Christ Hospital for 30 years and is still working, and her older sister transitioned from seven years in bedside care to specializing as an infertility nurse in Chicago.
These were the women who shaped Kylie’s early understanding of nursing.
She said she grew up with them as role models, which kept nursing in the back of her mind. It’s not that she felt pressured; her family was supportive no matter what. Yet, there was a unique draw to the career, something about watching these women pour themselves into their work, caring for strangers of all ages, coming home and wanting to do it all over again.
Aside from classes, students at Miami are expected to begin their clinical rotations at the start of their sophomore year. Clinical rotations allow students to gain hands-on experience, taking the knowledge they learn in the classroom to the real world.
Each year, the program progresses, moving from basic tasks to more complex, high-stakes rotations in fields like labor and delivery, pediatrics and mental health.
While the program guides each student along the same rigorous path of clinicals, lectures and nursing
simulations, it can only lead them so far. As they near graduation, every nursing student is faced with the decision of which field they’ll dedicate themselves to. Whether it’s pediatrics or psych, each student must decide where their strengths and limits lie.
And for Kylie, the end of this journey looms closer, with that final choice weighing on her heavily.
dark hair, began to pace energetically between two large projectors without a single note in her hand.
“Alright, everyone,” the professor said. “We’re kicking things off with a game: stroke bingo.”
Naturally
The same typical bingo rules apply for stroke bingo. Students scanned their cards intently, listening for clues.
“Bingo!” Kylie shouted five minutes into the game.
The prize? Obviously, a small stress ball shaped like a brain.
After the game, the professor moved seamlessly into the day’s lesson.
“Today is all about endocrine disorders,” she said as she began pacing again. “Let’s start with the posterior pituitary.”
The what?
I watched as the students followed along, tapping away on their tablets, heads nodding as terms like serum osmolality and urine osmolality were introduced. When the professor continued to diabetes insipidus, a few hands shot up, students eager to clarify any questions. No one missed a beat; this was a room that demanded focus.
“Now, we’re moving into the thyroid gland, which is crucial for every cell in the body,” she continued. “It produces T3 and T4 hormones that impact every cell.”
As I glanced around, I realized this lecture wasn’t just about endocrine systems. It was about the commitment these students held toward a field that required full focus, from tiny stress ball prizes to the intense study of disorders.
felt enormous, even when it was something as simple as taking vitals or documenting symptoms. Every interaction was supervised, and the feedback often felt overwhelming.
In med-surg II, she was pushed even further, managing IV drips and mapping out care plans for patients. Each task demanded more focus and accountability. For Kylie, this rotation marked a turning point. The shift from theory to practice became apparent as she was confronted with real patients and scenarios.
These weren’t just simulations or homework; these were real people, with real consequences if she made a mistake.
None of these experiences, however, prepared her for the emotional and professional test that was her mental health rotation. Kylie encountered patients whose struggles couldn’t be resolved with a procedure or medication. The unpredictability of their behaviors and the need for therapeutic communication couldn’t be found in a textbook. She had to learn how to navigate barriers of trust, relying on intuition as much as training.
Through each rotation, Kylie began to see the pattern. Nursing wasn’t just about learning how to perform tasks; it was about learning how to respond to the unknown, how to face the unexpected and adapt. The shift from the classroom to reality, the theoretical to the real, is something every nursing student must grapple with.
This is the very foundation of their training, where their future careers will be built upon. Every diagram, every term, every case study is designed to prepare them for the realities they will face in clinicals and beyond. These lessons aren’t just facts to memorize to pass an exam, they are tools to rely on when making split-second decisions or calming a panicked family.
This wasn’t merely a class they had to attend: It was their choice.
Kylie’s journey through her nursing rotations wasn’t a straight line of confidence or success. It was a process of confronting and overcoming challenges, each one testing her in new ways and forcing her to adapt.
As a sophomore in med-surg, she was tasked with headto-toe assessments and basic patient interactions. She said she remembers her hands shaking the first time she had to interact with a patient. The weight of responsibility
By the time Kylie reached her pediatric rotation, she felt a shift. The confidence she had built over the years through trial and error allowed her to focus not only on completing tasks, but on being truly present for her patients.
Kylie grew up babysitting and loved being around kids, so she always had pediatrics in the back of her mind. However, it wasn’t until her pediatric rotation at Cincinnati Children’s Hospital that she felt a deep pull toward this specialty.
This rotation wasn’t without its heartbreaking moments. One day, as she was clocking in, a code blue was called on her floor because a recurring patient had lost his pulse. The boy, just 4 years old when he first arrived at the hospital, had accidentally shot himself after finding a gun in his parents’ room. Since then, his parents gave him up, leaving him in the hands of the state.
Now 6, the boy passed away at the start of Kylie’s shift. She was ordered to clean the body with soap and water. The moment was irreplaceable; a neglected child, the victim of tragic circumstances, now lifeless before her, his eyes still open.
The body stayed on the floor for eight hours. It took eight hours for a family member to show up for the boy’s body. Eight hours.
Another day at clinical, Kylie was floated to a rehabilitation floor and assigned to act as a sitter for two young patients, a role usually given to those needing close monitoring. When she arrived, she learned the children had been brought in by the police. They were siblings, barely old enough to comprehend what had happened to them, but scarred in a way she could hardly process.
The little girl, no older than 5, had third-degree burns across the backs of her legs and lower body, inflicted when her parents had set her on a lit stove, while her younger brother had cigarette burns scattered across his small body.
For her entire eight-hour shift, Kylie was assigned to care for them.
They were too young to understand the details of what had happened, yet knew enough to be afraid. Throughout the day, the little boy clung to her, wanting nothing more than to be held. Kylie felt the weight of his small arms around her neck and would hold him tightly, shielding him from the world’s cruelty. It was the only way she knew to soothe him.
Meanwhile, the little girl struggled to trust anyone who came near her. When she needed to use the restroom, Kylie would hold her up gently to support her. But even this simple task was excruciating; the pain from her burns was too much, and she sobbed and screamed as she went to the bathroom, gripping Kylie’s neck.
“That’s when I started crying,” Kylie recalled. “It was
the first time I ever cried at work. I just cried with her as I cradled her.”
The experience stayed with Kylie, lingering even after her shift ended. She couldn’t shake the image of those children or the memory of the aunt who came to pick them up, cold and indifferent to the burns on their bodies.
She had been there to comfort and protect, and while she knew her role was limited, the experience awakened something within her: a commitment to help children who needed someone who cared.
In pediatrics, she saw both the pain and the resilience
PERSONAL HISTORY
BY CHLOE SOUTHARD
Editor’s note: This story contains profanity and may be offensive to some readers.
It was over wine and charcuterie at my best friend’s house that I realized perhaps some of the stories I have are worth sharing.
It was late. I was with Grace, my best friend since third grade, and our mothers. We do this often — wine, snacks and gossip. We were in the Morgans’ living room when Bonnie came in. She’s Grace’s grandmother.
Bonnie was a substitute teacher at our high school. Grace and I spent a lot of our time outside of school in the Victorian-style bed-and-breakfast she owns. During our little kiki, we found ourselves talking about the years when Grace and I rode to school on the bus.
The stories that Grace and I shared were some that our mothers had heard time and time again. Bonnie, however, had not heard these tales from Bus 22, and she was thoroughly entertained.
“Chloe,” she said to me. “Some day you should write a book about all of these stories.”
“I will for you, Bonnie,” I replied.
Grace’s family has been just as supportive and encouraging about my journalism career as my own. They’ve become a bonus family to me. Bonnie is no exception. She always tells me and my mother that I’m going places, that one day she’ll get to say she knew me before I was famous.
I don’t know that I’ll ever be famous, and what I’m about to share isn’t a book, but my time on Bus 22 was more than some moments of degeneracy on a dingy, yellow school bus.
Design by Lauren Menker
are simply the names of cartoon characters that the person loosely resembles. In a failed attempt at matching Ben’s comedic prowess, we began to call Evan “Baljeet" from “Phineas and Ferb,” and Micah became “Fregley” from “Diary of a Wimpy Kid.” Those names never caught on.
We had to step up our game. There was a boy who rode our bus — Blake, but I no longer remember his last name — who reeked of body odor amongst other pungent, indescribable scents. Grace and I aptly dubbed him “Onion Boy.” It was a rather lame name, especially considering we would later attend school with a kid called “Stinky Mike,” but it did stick.
Perhaps the most memorable thing Onion Boy contributed to Bus 22 was a stream of vomit. One day, on our way home from school, all seemed to be well until there was a commotion from the middle section of the bus.
of something. He made his way to the aisle and poured some sort of sawdust absorbent over Onion Boy’s mess.
“Just walk over it when we get to our stop,” he said.
Steve should have known better. There was no way in hell any of us were stepping in vomit, especially with our good shoes on. As we made our way to our stop, we devised a plan.
Once the bus stopped at the familiar spot across from the church on Main Street, we jumped into action. We opened the fire escape at the back of the bus and, despite Steve’s lackluster protests, jumped out into the road one by one — except for Chloe Morgan. Chloe was short enough to clamber over the seats on all fours, and she did exactly that until she reached the front of the bus.
This caught the attention of us in the back. Within a matter of seconds, we were met with a pile of vomit sliding down the aisle as the bus drove uphill. There sat Onion Boy in his seat, smirking and laughing as if he was proud of himself. This sparked an instant outrage, and a slew of insults were hurled his way.
“Are you kidding?!”
“You’re fucking nasty!”
“What is wrong with you?!”
This didn’t faze Onion Boy, but it did grab the attention of our bus driver, Steve.
After a few moments of waiting and several shouts of annoyance, Steve reappeared with a bag
Much to the confusion of the line of cars behind the bus, the lot of us briefly chatted before dispersing and making our respective walks home. Just another day on the bus, another story to mention to my mom when I got home.
There was a kid on our bus named Matthew. He and his sister, Charissa, were the children of a teacher at our school. Matt was one of the only out gay kids at Williamson High School, so people gave him a hard time.
While he never seemed to let it affect him, I always felt sorry for the way people treated Matt, especially on the bus. Sure, he could be annoying and say rude things himself, but did that warrant people calling him homophobic slurs every day?
No one spoke up for him, myself included. I was far too reserved, and for my own benefit, I stayed as far away from queer-related discussions on that bus as I could.
You see, around the time I was in eighth grade, I realized I was a lesbian. It was something I was always subconsciously aware of, but I didn’t fully acknowledge it until I was 14. It felt like a dark, heavy secret — something that I was convinced I would take to the grave.
Matt was always kind to me. There was an odd, unspoken sense of camaraderie between the two of us, and maybe that’s because he could tell what I was going through.
Queer people are good at scouting one another out. Then again, it could have just been obvious. When I came out in my adulthood, my mother, brother and Grace all said they knew.
Regardless, I was deep in the closet at 14, and seeing the way that the kids on my bus spoke about queer people was enough to make me fear even being perceived as such. Instead, Grace took all the “dyke” flack, and perhaps she did this because she knew what I was trying to hide.
Our dynamic has always been this way. Grace was (and still is) the loud, take-no-shit friend. She was an athlete and said whatever came to her mind. She would come to my defense at the drop of a hat.
Meanwhile, I was far more meek and awkward. I spent my free time indulging in online fandoms, drawing, writing and reading. But I’ve always been the one to talk sense into Grace and keep her from doing something stupid.
We made quite the odd pairing, especially because Grace considered kids in our grade with the same hobbies and interests as mine to be weird.
The way the kids on Bus 22 regarded anyone they even deemed as queer was enough to keep me on guard at all times. Take Grace’s “six-foottall dyke” name, for instance. Every time someone would call her by that name, I would silently pray to myself that they wouldn’t turn it onto me, that they wouldn’t figure me out.
There was a girl who rode our bus named Libby. She was quite a character and was prone to random bursts of anger.
Libby had short, dyed hair (purple, if I remember correctly) and wore glasses. Someone once told
us at the back of the bus that her real name was “Libigail.” I don’t know if that’s even true, but we still called her that just to piss her off.
Because of her appearance and demeanor, Libby was also constantly called names. Even in the middle of an infamous outburst, Ben shouted, “Yeah, lesbian rights!”
So I did my best to remain discreet, to never give myself away. I played along when the older kids would call someone gay. I stayed silent when they were hostile towards Matt. I feared that if anyone even jokingly called me gay, I would face a never-ending stream of scrutiny.
I was in enemy territory, so to speak. Flying under the radar. I like to think of it like that scene in “The Wizard of Oz” when the Scarecrow, Tin Man and Cowardly Lion disguise themselves as Winkie Guards.
No one could tell me apart from the rest. I wanted to keep it that way.
Amidst the shenanigans, hostility, physical violence and occasional sexual acts, you may be wondering, “Where the hell was the bus driver during all of this?”
Trust me, he was well aware of what was happening on Bus 22. Steve, formally known as Mr. Steve by passengers, was a pastor at a local Baptist church, and I believe he still preaches to this day. I think he tried to be more of a friend to us than a bus driver — maybe because he was intimidated by the rowdy bunch of teenagers in the back.
It was easy to manipulate Steve into doing whatever we wanted or letting stuff slide. Steve even got in on the bullying. If there was something we wanted him to say over the intercom, he would. Sometimes, he would say things completely unprovoked. He once randomly went over the intercom and asked if anyone would like to play Firetruck with him.
Firetruck is a game where one person puts their hand on another’s inner thigh and gradually moves it up until the other person says “red light.” While the elementary schoolers up front had no clue what Steve was talking about, you can probably imagine how those in the back reacted.
“What the fuck?!”
“Steve, do you even know what that means?!”
And the most commonly used phrase towards our dear bus driver, whether he was speaking over the intercom or playing church music: “Fuck off, Steve!”
Steve’s negligence would continue, but eventually, working cameras were installed on the bus. This was bad news for us in the back. We were being watched and listened to, and now we could face consequences.
The cameras caused a sense of paranoia for about a day before things returned back to normal. Once again, people were up and moving and throwing things while the bus was running, and once again, the n-word was freely tossed around while kids screamed at one another.
Unsurprisingly, this caught the attention of the bigwigs at Williamson — our principal and dean of students.
One day, we were about to embark on the journey home. We flocked to the back and took our usual seats, but as the other buses began to leave, good old 22 stayed put. Kids began shouting at Steve, but the commotion quickly fell silent once Mr. Butterfield (nicknamed “Butterballs” by none other than Ben), the dean, stepped onto the bus.
Mr. Butterfield proceeded to scream at us for a lengthy amount of time while Steve drove the bus around the school. We muffled our laughter and concealed our smirks as his voice drilled into our ears.
He also informed us that Bus 22 had been highlighted as the worst in the school district. I don’t know why he would tell us this because it only amused us even more, and I think it only made people want to act worse.
And oh so casually, I went home that day and told my mother about our bus’s new title. It didn’t occupy too much of my mind at the time. I was too busy rushing through my homework so I could spend an ungodly amount of time on my phone.
When I was off the bus and out of school, I spent the majority of my time on sites like Instagram, Tumblr and Wattpad. These sites were homes to several of the fandoms I was a part of.
I spent so much time scrolling through Tumblr and Instagram to look at fan art. I spent an embarrassing amount of time reading and writing
fanfiction on Wattpad. These spaces were like my own little escapes, especially after witnessing such nasty displays of bigotry on the bus.
I didn’t realize it at the time, but these fandom spaces helped me come to terms with myself. I mean, I didn’t ever say to myself, “OK, I’m a lesbian,” until I saw Kim Walker in the original “Heathers” film, which I discovered through the musical.
And while I spent so many years being afraid to tell people who I really am, I was able to feel at ease amongst others like myself. All I had to do was pull my phone from my pocket.
Up until the night that Bonnie told me I should write a book, I never considered sharing my stories from Bus 22 with anyone unless I was telling them as silly anecdotes — because that’s all they were to me. But for some reason, her suggestion stirred something within me.
I didn’t think my few years spent on Bus 22 would remain some of my most memorable experiences from middle school. But they’ve stuck with me more than any dances, class events or field trips ever have.
Those years on the bus are far behind us. Grace, Kylee, Chloe and Libby all have babies now. Ian has been serving in the military since he graduated. Ben moved away from Pennsylvania and I haven’t heard a word about him since. Matt is no longer Matt but Madi. I’m in my senior year of college, and I didn’t officially come out until I was 21.
It’s strange, the way we had our own little motley crew at the back of the bus; we started and ended our school days together. Now, I only keep in touch with a handful of my fellow passengers, and I have no clue where the majority of them ended up.
I find myself wondering if these stories have stuck with them the same way that they have with me. Do they wonder where everyone else is and how they’re doing? Do they even remember the names of the kids in the back?
I don’t know. Maybe those years on the bus are cemented in my mind because I was finding myself amidst the chaos of adolescence, and the backdrop just so happened to be worn leather seats, dirty windows and a ragtag, unhinged group of kids who were also coming into their own. S
It’s 2014 in Oxford. I’m 13 years old, standing right in front of 10 N. Beech St. The early afternoon weather is fairly pleasant for mid-February, and people are making their way around Uptown as they would any given Saturday: checking out the remnants of the farmer’s market, stopping by Kofenya for a drink and getting creative at You’re Fired!
Eventually, I see my friend Isaac turn the corner and stroll toward me. I wave, and we make light conversation as we head into the welcoming doors of Oxford’s only cinema, the Princess Theater. We pay for our tickets, indulge in some popcorn and step into one of the four screening rooms. Shortly after we take our seats, the lights dim and the trailers play. Soon, we’re locked into watching “The Lego Movie.”
Two hours later, as the final scene fades and the credits roll, we step back out into the now slightly cooler air, laughing about our favorite moments from the film. I say goodbye to Isaac, grab my bike and cycle home, looking forward to my next visit.
That visit never happened.
Ten years later, I’m 23 years old and sitting toward the back of Kofenya. Across the street is 10 N. Beech St., completely vacant on its first floor and housing student apartments on its upper floors. Any indicators of the
once-thriving theater I knew as a kid are gone, including the warm glow of its marquee.
I’ve walked past that building hundreds of times since the Princess closed permanently, only a month after my visit with Isaac. Since then, I’ve graduated high school, learned how to drive, met and lost friends and almost finished college. I’ve grown up. But when I see the empty shell of the former theater, it still hurts.
Plenty of businesses have come and gone, ones that were considered staples of the community, but few were as controversial and frustrating as the Princess Theater. Its closure created a void in Oxford that has yet to be filled, and many of the issues people complain about within the town can arguably be traced back to the moment its doors shut for good.
Many people tried for years to save the theater, to bring it back in some new way or at least preserve its essence as part of Oxford’s history. Despite the community’s best efforts, art lost to commerce.
But it didn’t have to.
The Oxford Theater, as the Princess was originally known, opened on Sept. 11, 1911, four years after the
Design by Sydney Mulford
PERSPECTIVE
harmony with each other. Despite the close proximity, as well as similar film lineups, the managers never leaned into direct conflict, content to operate as their own individual entities.
By the 1990s, however, it became clear that the Oxford Theater, which was renamed the Princess Theater, had won. In 1989, Miami-Western closed its doors. The building still hints that a theater used to be present, with its hanging marquee that lights up like a beacon for students’ weekend activities. But to most in Oxford, it exists first and foremost as Brick Street Bar.
The Princess, now under management by Alliance Entertainment and expanded to four screens, would continue onward as Oxford’s remaining bastion of film. New investment kept it alive, passing its 100-year anniversary and cementing its place as an important piece of Oxford history.
Four years later, it and everything it stood for would be gone.
Most of Oxford’s longtime citizens have a Princess or Miami-Western Theater story.
Mike Smith, former mayor and current Oxford City Council member, worked at the Princess from high school through his sophomore year of college. A projectionist, Smith balanced the changing spools of 35mm film by literally going out on a limb to update the theater’s marquee.
“We used to call it ‘Going up to the dance hall,’” Smith said. “Nowadays, I don’t think this would be at all legal from OSHA. You would climb out onto the roof in all types of weather – summer, winter, spring or fall – on Thursday nights and change the marquee for the new movies on Friday.”
ages and interests with employees that cared about providing a positive experience.
“People expect a lot more from their theater experiences these days … that was never quite the experience we had at the Princess,” Smith said.
Around the same time, Amy Clay, a fourth-generation Oxford resident and special education teacher at Kramer Elementary, was working at the Miami-Western. For her, the theater wasn’t just a job, but part of a larger culture in Oxford.
“We would go Uptown in high school because we didn’t drive, [and] we didn’t leave town,” Clay said. “Uptown was a place to gather safely. Parents would drop their high schoolers Uptown, and we would sit up there and go to movies, and it was very much a community.”
Similar to Smith, Clay worked at the Miami-Western through both high school and college, seeing movies like “Pee-wee’s Big Adventure” and “Purple Rain” come through. Compared to the Princess’ more modest screening rooms, the Miami-Western’s single screen was housed in a massive space that could, and often did, seat around 170 people at once.
“I remember sitting in the ticket booth, and they kept coming back and checking the ticket numbers out of the little pop-up machine,” Clay said. “And then they’d be like, ‘OK, stop!’ And I would close up the box office and go inside and put up a little ‘sold out’ sign. And it was like, ‘Wow, we actually sold out movies.’”
The theaters provided an opportunity to create genuinely meaningful connections with film. For people like Wil Haygood, Miami University alum and author of books like “Tigerland” and “Colorization,” those experiences stuck with them years into the future.
“I was walking by after class one morning, and I saw
When the Princess’ lights went out, its sudden absence reverberated across Oxford.
“I think there was a total sense of loss,” Smith said. “There was a feeling that we were a small town, but we still had a hometown movie theater where you could go … You didn’t have to drive to Hamilton or Cincinnati or farther afield.”
For a smaller, tight-knit city like Oxford, local businesses become a key part of its identity. Movie theaters are perfect in this regard, as films can slot into many situations and surrounding events: birthday parties, date nights, classes or family outings.
Even with the shock of its closure, many took the buildings’ owners at their word and looked forward to the Princess being rebuilt and given some much-needed upgrades. That enthusiasm would be short-lived.
Despite tenants moving into its upper levels, the bottom floor of the building sat completely empty, a shell with none of the amenities necessary to run a theater. If the Princess was going to come back, it would cost close to $1 million.
Suddenly, the building owners didn’t seem as enthusiastic as they once were.
David Prytherch, an Oxford City Council member and professor of geography at Miami, began heavily involving himself in the affairs of the Princess around this time.
“In our country, if you own something, it’s your property,” Prytherch said. “So we had to play really nicely with them, because they could kill a hostage at any time, and we hoped to save a hostage.”
By early 2018, it became clear no movement was happening on the theater front. So Prytherch and a group of heavily motivated residents mobilized. A Facebook page, “Friends of the Princess Theater,” was created, and meetings were held to find a solution.
Eventually, the stars aligned, and a deal presented itself.
In collaboration with Oxford’s former economic development director Alan Kyger, a proposal was made that would involve the city and theater manager Dan Heilbrunn working together to fund the Princess’ return. Heilbrunn would then operate the theater under his independent branding. All the building’s owners would need to do is chip in and allow them to utilize the space.
They said no.
On Aug. 23, 2018, they signed a lease with a Chinese restaurant to take over the space instead. The restaurant never opened.
“I mean, the Princess really was like a fairy tale, you know,” Prytherch said. “The Princess was kidnapped and was held hostage, and we tried to save the Princess, and in the end we were not able.”
In the decade since the Princess’ final bow, the cost of theater upkeep has certainly increased thanks to updated technology and higher expectations from consumers. Even so, plenty of small, independent theaters continue
to operate successfully, thanks to passionate managers and equally passionate attendees.
Jonathan McNeal is the general manager of one such theater, The Neon in Dayton.
“It’s a balance; we curate a lot, and then we allow the space to be rented for a very low cost,” McNeal said. “We want those organizations to be able to not be priced out, to be able to host those events here.”
The Neon has been around since the 1980s, and like the Princess, began life as a single-screen theater before eventually upgrading to two. In 2019, the theater was granted nonprofit status, something which McNeal credits as helping to keep the theater alive as COVID-19 struck and forced The Neon to close.
Despite it now being back open and still successful, McNeal is cautious about the future. However, he still thinks a theater could work in a town like Oxford.
“I can see people’s trepidation of taking on a theater because it’s such a gamble these days,” McNeal said. “You’ve really got to find the right passionate person to take on the project. It’s not going to be some company that just decides to, like, let’s see if we can make a movie theater work.”
In Oxford today, it really is individuals and small groups leading the charge. Haygood is one such case, hosting a themed yearly spring film festival at Miami.
“It just means a lot to me to have movies that have social meaning shown on a 60-foot screen,” Haygood said. “It just makes the story bigger. It seems like it makes the story more epic.”
In 2024, films were curated around the civil rights movement, including a showing of “The Butler” ten years after its original release. This year, Haygood says the theme was journalism with highlighted films including “Capote,” “Spotlight” and “The Post.”
Outside of Haygood’s efforts, screenings occur fairly regularly around town. The Miami Activities and Programming (MAP) organization hosts films around campus once a month, as well as the occasional skate-in movie at the Goggin Ice Center. Weekly, there’s Classic Movie Fridays put on at Peabody Hall by the Western Center for Social Impact and Innovation.
Even outside of Miami, residents can find occasional screenings at the Community Arts Center or Uptown. To celebrate the 2024 eclipse, for example, a host of spacerelated films were shown at locations all around town, from the Art Museum to the Lane Public Library.
While these are nice gestures, they still feel like a Band-Aid on a bullet wound.
The efforts to fill in the Princess’ old space stand as a microcosm of trends within Oxford’s Uptown, none of which have come to fruition.
First, a Chinese restaurant, announced at a time when the town was seeing a significant amount of students coming from China driven by Miami’s marketing efforts. An influx of restaurants followed, many of which would operate for only a few years before closing.
The most recent attempt to replace the Princess was to put in a bar with an outdoor patio area in the alley next to the building. The building owners would need to go through Oxford’s Historic and Architectural Preservation Committee. This time, however, they were unsuccessful, as their proposal was never passed.
Here, too, is a sign of how Uptown has changed over the years: Bars have taken over the space. Places catering to student nightlife are to be expected for a college town like Oxford, but these are spaces that rarely attract customers over the age of 25.
Many students at Miami complain about a lack of things to do in Oxford beyond going to bars and restaurants. Of course, there’s plenty to do if you know where to look, but very little is pushed directly to students. And when you walk down High Street and see
nothing but bars, restaurants and a few specialty shops, you can’t fault this disillusioned take.
It also contributes to a disconnect between Miami and the rest of Oxford.
It’s not like Oxford needs saving; the town is, all things considered, doing fine. And even if it wasn’t, the return of a theater probably wouldn’t be the magic solution to its problems.
But it matters to me.
I won’t be in Oxford forever, and realistically any changes that happen once I leave won’t make much of a difference in my own life. Yet, I still care about the town I’ve grown up in. I care about its people, its culture, its buildings, its history. Most of all, I care about the next child born here and the opportunities they have.
I found my passion for film thanks to the Princess. If there’s even a slight chance someone else can develop the same love for this beautiful art form, I believe that’s worth fighting for.
We couldn’t save the Princess. But maybe, someday, it can come back to life. S
dream big, bright, beautiful dreams.
THE FIRST LINK: THE FIRST LINK: THE FIRST link:
How a radioactive Cold War site grew into a thriving nature preserve
Concrete silos seven stories high rose from the surrounding forest and farmland like ominous watchtowers. Smoke billowed out of stacks into the air as trains barreled in and out of the small rural community all day. Surrounding a fenced perimeter were guards armed with guns, hiding the secret within. Hiding the secret that inside were thousands of tons of uranium ore being processed, a radioactive metal which helped fuel a global nuclear arms race for nearly 40 years.
Lisa Crawford was recently married with a young child when she moved to Ross, which sits 30 minutes south of Oxford, in late 1984, searching for a quiet life for her family. At first glance, Crawford found that simple existence she was looking for: a rented house in a quiet Midwestern town. But one look across the road quickly shattered that reality.
The sprawling thousand-acre facility was impossible to miss, looming over the town and its residents, many of whom it employed, but even more of whom had no idea of the radioactive product within its intimidating exterior. Yet, a much greater danger was spawning from the plant, one that was out of sight and unknown to the workers and Crawford alike, until her landlord came knocking.
In 1981, three years before Crawford moved to Ross, the plant, known then as the Fernald Feed Materials Production Center, first detected uranium in offsite drinking water wells. There were no federal limits for uranium concentrations in water, and the Department
of Energy (DOE), which built the plant and contracted operations out to National Lead of Ohio, decided against taking action on the contamination. However, Crawford’s landlord still admitted her well had tested positive for the radioactive element.
Crawford and her family didn’t know what to make of the news and, wary of the dismissiveness of the DOE, decided to contact other agencies.
“You know, we're just average folks,” Crawford said. “We don't know anything.”
Soon after, in 1985, the Ohio Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) dispatched surface water expert Graham Mitchell to test her well. At this point, rumors of environmental contamination had begun to circulate, and uranium was found at two sites in the surrounding area. Concern was growing. Ross residents were forming advocacy groups, and the media was picking up stories about uranium pollution.
Despite having no jurisdiction over the federal site as a state employee, Mitchell immediately knew something was wrong when he also detected unusual levels of uranium. What he found was the same as the DOE, but he had a very different and much clearer message to Crawford.
“Find another source of drinking water.”
Design by Erin Morgan
BY SAM NORTON
Crawford made sure she was one of them. She waited and waited as the meeting dragged on, growing more irritated as they continued to dodge questions and claim the community had nothing to worry about. Crawford said she didn’t buy it for one second.
When it was her turn, she marched up to the stand with water from her property. In front of the packed room, she wanted to see them own up to their words.
“I sat my jug of water and my five red solo cups in front of these idiots,” Crawford recalled. “… ‘Your letter tells me that this water is safe to drink. I want to see every one of you drink it.’”
The cups were left untouched.
That set off a domino effect, thrusting Crawford into the media spotlight as the leader of FRESH and a vocal advocate for the injustice her community was facing. At this point, the Ohio and U.S. EPA were testing water both on and off-site, and residents were using bottled water rather than their wells. Pressure was mounting to shut down the plant, with Crawford and FRESH spearheading it.
Crawford and her husband sued the DOE and National Lead of Ohio in 1985. Members of FRESH scoured piles of documents from the site, discovering that they knew about contamination years before informing Ross residents. They became the first outside group to tour Fernald and came equipped with cameras and radiation-measurement tools, sharing what they found with local media.
Crawford bluntly admitted that what drove her, and many in the community, was anger. Anger that they had to fight for answers. Anger that it was taking so long to create change. Anger that people at Fernald knew what was going on, but didn’t tell anyone.
At one point, Fernald’s lawyers blatantly told Crawford’s lawyers that they didn’t believe the community could do anything about it.
“‘We knowingly and willingly contaminated the site and the water, and there's really nothing you can do about it,’” Crawford recalls the lawyers admitting. “Oh wow, that really pissed the community off.”
Eventually, Crawford testified before the U.S. House of Representatives, demanding that the federal government step in and halt the uranium production that was poisoning her community.
Thrust into the spotlight as the sole voice of Ross, she said testifying was intimidating. But after seeing her own representative stand up against other representatives on her behalf, Crawford found the strength she needed.
“We left a lot of shoe leather in D.C. too,” Crawford said. “We held our elected officials’ feet to the fire. We’re like, ‘By
golly, you represent us, and you're going to do your job.’”
In 1988, then Ohio Governor Richard Celeste sent a letter to President Ronald Reagan asking him to shut down production. Reagan acknowledged that something needed to be done in a visit to Ohio soon after, and in 1989, it was declared a superfund site, and environmental clean up began. But it wasn’t until 1991 that the Fernald plant officially halted all uranium production. The years of pressure from FRESH and environmental agencies had finally paid off.
“We became a force of reckoning to be dealt with,” Crawford said of FRESH during that time.
Almost exactly 40 years after the plant opened, and a decade after water contamination was detected, the uranium processing was over. But the work to restore the land had just begun.
A mallard duck couple swims lazily across a manmade wetland surrounded by tallgrass prairie. I watch them go by before raising my eyes to the large earthen mound rising out of the grass several hundred yards away. Underneath that mound is 85% of the harmful waste, more than a hundred thousand tons, that decades of uranium processing produced, radioactive and not. Even further below the mound, and my own feet for that matter, is the Great Miami Aquifer, where thousands of pounds of uranium still remain.
I turn around and head back to the visitor center. I go to the front desk and ask for Brian Zimmerman, the site manager overseeing current operations at the preserve, whom I am meeting for an interview. I am led to a small conference room full of books, newspaper clippings and a plethora of posters and handouts detailing the transformation from superfund site to nature preserve.
In 1991, Fernald’s mission was officially changed to environmental clean up.
When production was halted, a group made up of residents and employees at the DOE, Ohio EPA, U.S. EPA and more was formed to determine the fate of the Fernald site. It was clear from the beginning that it was going to be extremely costly and time-consuming to reduce the uranium contamination to “background levels,” or the level at which an element is naturally found in the environment.
In light of the problems from contamination in their own backyard, the residents of Ross decided to send only the worst waste away, and in 1992, the first 1,600 barrels of the waste were sent by rail to Nevada, out of an eventual total 15,000. The remaining waste was stored on-site to avoid harming other places. This was one of many decisions that the community directly
made, as their input was key in determining the future of Fernald.
Mitchell describes how residents wanted it to be a community space, and without the possibility of having people move back on the land permanently, the idea for a nature preserve was born.
“The idea was to give something back to the community,” Mitchell said.
And that they did. After nearly two decades of clean up and restoration, a myriad of six different habitats and seven miles of public-use trails cover the former production site, along with one of the largest man-made wetlands in Ohio. The preserve has become extremely popular with birders, as the variety of habitats attracts an abundance of species, including some that are rare to southwest Ohio.
Yet, behind the restored landscape, there are still harsh reminders of the past. A raised mound that is closed off to the public houses deadly levels of radioactive waste, sealed up and buried underground. There is still a uranium plume in the Great Miami Aquifer, which supplies much of Southwest Ohio. The DOE has contained the plume, however, and chemically treats the contaminated water before it is discharged back into the Great Miami River.
Overseeing all of this is the DOE and Ohio EPA, a key component in the increased transparency that was so important to Ross residents. Even today, monitoring occurs daily, and untreated groundwater contamination levels are not expected to reach drinking quality standards until 2045. Fernald still echoes the scars of its past, and maintaining two vastly different worlds is a challenge, but it has been successful so far.
“We have our ongoing operations, and having the public in areas where we have operations is a potential source of conflict,” said Zimmerman, who is the only federal employee at the site. “... We haven’t had too many issues with members of the public going off trail and affecting our operations, but it is a balance we have to strike.”
While Zimmerman sees the visibility of Fernald’s past as necessary to ensure it remains a safe and healthy site, he admits those who lived through its worst days view it differently. When Fernald showed what can happen when industrial sites have poor environmental regulation, people from Ross and the EPA fought tooth and nail to keep it in the public eye, ensuring that
something would be done. Now, they fight to preserve its history, in the hope that nothing like it will happen again.
“How do you make sure no one forgets this site?” Mitchell questioned, who continued working at the Ohio EPA throughout the restoration process.
The repercussions from the plant still weigh on Ross, though. Crawford said that medical studies in the town revealed higher rates of breast, lung and kidney cancer, along with childhood developmental disorders. Zimmerman said that some Ross residents who lived with the towering silos and billowing smoke stacks still hold onto those memories, still wary of the people and the land that transformed their small town.
Yet, there were victories. Crawford won $78 million for her community, and a workers’ union won $14 million. The contamination is contained now, the visitors center promotes itself as a community asset and Ross stands as a testament to environmental advocacy.
Graham Mitchell took the first steps in admitting something was wrong. Leaders in the town and government stepped up to defend Ross residents. And Lisa Crawford fought so passionately for her community that it thrust her into a world of advocacy she would have never expected.
It brought her to D.C., to meeting President Bill Clinton, to countless national interviews and carrying the Olympic torch through Cincinnati. Yet, after all of it – all the lights, the anger, the work – she found herself back where it all began. Living the quiet life she had dreamed of in a small, resilient town: her kids grown, but her eyes ever watchful.
“When you don't pay attention anymore is when you get in trouble,” Crawford said. “It's my job. It's my lifelong job.” S
By Evan Stefanik
The cost of Cook Field, Millett Hall and our college experience Is Robert Frost’s Miami melting?
You roll in from the state route. To your right, a wall of construction blocks your vision around the corner. Dust flies from its surface and clings to your windows.
Eyes peeled in that direction, you pull through the roundabout. For a moment, something like a museum flickers into view. Then, you jolt to a stop. A food delivery robot crosses the street, its tiny orange flag bobbing past your windshield. At the next intersection, red shirts dot the street’s perimeter, each shouting or holding a sign.
Turning left, you venture around a vast square. Buildings you pass hide behind scaffolding and neon-clad employees. At the final corner, you veer down a winding road, where towering assemblages of black metal fill the fields. You squint at the signs in front of a series of stone establishments, trying to make sense of it all.
Driving away, you peer into your rearview mirror as the mess recedes in the distance. It looked like any
“the most beautiful campus that there ever was.”
ordinary college campus, obscured by a constant, concrete Bildungsroman. The place blended right in with the rest of the colleges across the country.
If I said that was Miami University, would you recognize it?
Robert Frost deemed Miami “the most beautiful campus that there ever was.” In reverence of its Georgianesque architectural inspiration and ample access to nature, he championed the university’s potential.
Today, as my graduation looms, I watch Miami betray Frost’s characterization. My fictional rendering in the introduction compiles the upcoming changes proposed by those in charge, including the effects of those already in place: a new arena colonizes Cook Field; Grubhub and artificial intelligence gentrify our academic spaces; faculty and peers resort to activism; construction defames our hotspots; solar power farms pummel the grass; and old building names, like those on Western, succumb to memory. Opponents deem Miami a “sinking public ivy brand.”
However, not everybody at Miami perceives a threat. Optimists interpret the changes as innovative
Design by Caitlin Curran
opportunities for our campus to remain competitive. They acknowledge the temporary risks to opinion and the necessity for a cautious pace but affirm their vision that it someday pays off for the university.
President Gregory Crawford, the school’s Board of Trustees, donors and other stakeholders seek to bolster Miami’s attractiveness to the general public. Their focus leans less on the university’s aesthetic heritage. Instead, they pursue high-profile athletic projects to catch enrollees and sustainable energy sourcing to future-proof operations.
But these ambitions coincide with an ongoing university-wide crisis: a $36 million budget deficit reported at the close of the last fiscal year.
Donors, while encouraging construction, contribute a crucial amount to Miami’s funding for these developments. Over time, the university’s path to carbon neutrality by 2040 will also minimize the campus’s operational costs.
Yet Miami now appears at a tipping point of priorities, each with unique consequences.
Miami rests on uncharted territory, motivated either by preserving its rich tradition and aesthetic or experimenting for the effect of revenue.
When not planned properly, money-makers could have a pernicious impact on our campus. The zeitgeist orbits around this Cook-Millett drama, but it signals a trajectory of disorder in the university’s future as a whole.
This pattern mirrors the ongoing trends in higher education. According to 2026 gubernatorial candidate Vivek Ramaswamy, Ohio has more universities than any other state, yet it contains the least number of people under 18 who might enroll in college. Miami’s government subsidy lies at about 8% today, one of the lowest amounts for a public university according to a search on the Ohio auditor’s website. And with Ohio recently capping tuition increases, Miami has fewer levers to pull.
To cooperate with the industrializing forces at play, Miami gets creative. As the university moves toward geothermally-heated buildings to achieve carbon neutrality, more renovation pops up.
Miami also recently employed its Transform, Honor, Realize, Innovate, Value and Embrace initiative, which addresses contemporary issues and includes passionate ideas such as the new sports arena. These well-intended efforts grant trade-offs, sometimes at the expense of academics.
The Faculty Alliance of Miami stood its ground on the latter. Although professors reached an agreement in the university legislature about their pay, concerns about the quality of classes still linger in the periphery. Many faculty
millett
report low morale, particularly in light of the new requirement to tack another course onto their workload next semester. Recent years show the volatility of certain disciplines at Miami, such as with the gradual folding of humanities and classics.
Both instructors and students navigate an environment ultimately out of their control.
Upper-level disregard for student input bore itself when Crawford first announced Cook’s replacement of Millett. On the 11-member committee tasked with recommending spaces for the updated arena, no students served. Only one faculty member, Kelly Knollman-Porter, did. She also heads Miami’s Campus Planning Committee, but the university largely interacted with the Board of Trustees rather than conventionally via her team. Miami implemented the ad hoc site-seek as an appeasement after the conflict-of-interest went noticed and faculty took action in the university Senate.
An article published by the Oxford Free Press exposed that more than one-fifth of student respondents disapproved of the Cook Field arena project. Despite debates on and off campus, our voices have largely been ignored.
At the very least, students deserved better access to information and meaningful involvement surrounding Cook Field and Millett Hall. Advocating for students’ desires and warnings asks greater questions about the campus we leave behind. Future students inherit the beautiful Miami that past generations loved and learned from. Nothing assuages the current animosity over divergent interests at the top, so we hold onto it.
Miami needs democratic, mindful leadership to carry its legacy forward. Our fling with extraneous financial sources could compromise us until we conform to the
Despite the disparaged transparency, both in reference to the arena and its internal progress, Miami assumes an urgency for this athletic pursuit. For its subjects, though, the action may pit them against their cherished university.
Cook Field is almost in David Prytherch’s front yard. The geography professor’s office window offers a view of students banding together every day. After working here for 21 years, he said he intimately knows the space’s significance to them.
“Students just don’t get it,” Prytherch said of Cook Field’s demolition. “It doesn’t make sense to them. It disempowers them.”
Prytherch sides with those on campus who stress about too much happening at once. Since the arena earned the record for the university's largest-ever single capital investment, Prytherch expected a more rigorous campus plan and economic feasibility analysis behind it. Not a borrowing of $170 million.
He watches as his and his colleague’s classrooms fade beneath shifting institutional pressures. To Prytherch, glory in sports matters less than educational integrity.
“We need to be very careful: Nobody knows if it’ll be a successful investment or not,” Prytherch said. “[The arena] could tip the balance into eroding our identity and trust.”
Other faculty members support the project. Straying from the speculations that it might cause commotion, Powell said it “will vastly improve traffic by returning it to the state route” rather than flooding arena-visitors onto campus. Adam Beissel, an associate professor in sports leadership and management (SLAM), tries to widen the horizon.
Beissel projected how a new arena could satisfy Miami’s desperate need for a conference center. He sees
theater, celebrity guests and other events besides athletics occurring there, which might sell the campus appeal to nuanced audiences.
His perspective gives the project a fair chance, especially since Millett waited its turn for renovation after all the other athletic facilities. It could expand opportunities for the growing body of students in kinesiology, the thirdlargest major at Miami, and other sports studies.
“They’re being mindful of academics,” Beissel said. “One out of every 10 SLAM students could benefit from the renovation.”
He identified Miami as inhabiting a “middle phase,” gradually emphasizing sports as a recruitment tactic.
“There’s a demand to attract students with athletics, and that’s how any big school can market its reputation,” Beissel said. “[The] University of Cincinnati or Xavier University can fill their venues, but for us, it’s an uphill battle.”
However, many students form their character around a refusal to easily submit.
The athletics adjustments trickle into the bigger dilemmas in higher education, which chapter leader Kali Barcroft of Miami’s Ohio Student Association (OSA) fights against. This semester, OSA mainly tackled Ohio Senate Bill 1 (S.B. 1). Barcroft latched onto the activism of The Ohio State University students and imbued it in Miami’s student body using petitions and protests.
She worries Miami’s tolerance of these broader trends will denigrate identity-related organizations and female students. Same for both Barcroft’s OSA and the student experience with the new sports arena, the road to justice stretches ahead as formidable, but not impossible.
Editor’s note: This is a piece of fiction and does not depict any real people or situations.
The oak and maple trees along Slantwalk swayed with the wind. The orange leaves played their part in a fall song that dominated Miami University’s campus. Right there, between the trees, Howard Jones stumbled away from Uptown, getting closer to King Library with every step.
Howard was returning to Peabody Hall, the dorm he’s called home for a semester and a half. He’s one of what seemed like millions of first-year students at Miami. And just like the other first years, he spent his Saturday night at New Bar — his shoes sticking to the ground, fighting for a spot at the bar and hoping his fake ID would work.
His walk back was a blur. He passed King Library, his burps still tasting like his last Jack and Coke. Then he strolled by Armstrong, where he nearly tripped over his own feet before the ground finally flattened out to a point where he didn’t have to brace himself from falling every step.
He edged around the fences surrounding Bachelor Hall and finally over the small footbridge outside Hodge Hall. That’s where Howard slowly reintegrated back into the real world around him.
He looked up to see Havighurst Hall, where a few guys he knew lived, and decided he should text them to see what they were up to. After all, it was only 12:30 a.m.
Just as he looked down at his phone, he heard a thud outside Havighurst. More drunk than scared, Howard kept walking.
He was about to text his friend Jimmy when he heard someone scream. Howard locked in for a moment and drunkenly scanned the windows on the south side of Havighurst until he found one on the second floor where the blinds were moving and shadows flickered on the wall.
Despite the commotion, Howard didn’t think much of it. The windows on either side of that one were filled with purple and red lights that changed to the beat of the music he could hear two floors below. It was just another party.
Design by Sydney Mulford
Howard sent Jimmy the text, walked the rest of the way to Peabody and collapsed in his bed without thinking twice about brushing his teeth.
The Sunday scaries hit Howard as hard as anyone when he woke up, with many questions bouncing around his head.
I have so much homework. Why did I even go out last night? What the hell was happening at Havighurst?
As quickly as those questions populated his mind, they flew out. Howard had to focus on what was happening right now – his stomach was rumbling.
He shivered through a cold shower, the only type Peabody offered, before putting on a pair of black sweatpants, a gray sweatshirt and Crocs. He was ready to make the seemingly 20-minute walk to Western Dining Hall.
After battling winds that tried to blow him around like a piece of paper, he made it to Western. When he scanned his student ID, Howard saw Jimmy, Ben and Jacob, three of his best friends who live in Havighurst, sitting at a booth on the top floor.
Jimmy was the tallest and most put-together of the group. He was 6 feet, 2 inches tall, had medium-length hair with a middle part that could land him a leading role in “Friends” and would routinely talk to the best-looking girls at the bars.
Ben was the scrawniest. He was about 5 feet, 9 inches tall and 140 pounds, with no fat to speak of. His black hair was as thin as straw and fell halfway down his face. Ben got along with everyone he talked to, but they had to talk to him first.
Jacob was just Jacob. He was somewhere between Jimmy and Ben in about everything. He was above average height, but no one asked him if he played basketball. He had a cookie-cutter frat boy hairstyle, despite not being in a frat, that complemented nothing about his face. He had friends, but he had to work for them.
The three had been friends since before high school. They met through various travel hockey teams throughout elementary school. When each of them chose a college, they included the others. Thus, they ended up rooming together in a triple on the second floor of Havighurst.
After seeing them together, like always, Howard joined them after grabbing bacon, scrambled eggs and a biscuit from one of the counters. The group was strangely quiet before Howard got to their table.
“Hey, guys. What’s going on?” Howard asked as he sat down next to Ben.
“Nothing much, just trying to get the taste of Trash Can out of my mouth,” Jacob said, grimacing at the memory.
“Yeah, man. We went a little too hard last night,” Ben said while chewing. “Well, everyone but Jimmy. He was too busy in his room with a new girl.”
“Oh, really?” Howard asked.
“Yeah, yeah,” Jimmy responded flippantly. “I don’t want to get into it, though.”
“Oh! It was that good, huh,” Howard said.
“I guess you could say that,” Jimmy vaguely responded.
“Is that why you never texted me back last night?” Howard asked.
Jimmy nodded before the other guys took over the questioning.
Howard, Ben and Jacob spent the next 20 minutes berating Jimmy about this mystery woman, but he never budged. He didn’t give up the girl’s hair color, height or grade. Becoming restless with his non-answers, Howard turned his fury of questions onto Ben.
“What about you, Ben?” he asked. “I haven’t heard you talk about a single girl all year.”
“None of them are pretty enough for me, man. I just can’t lower my standards to what Miami offers,” Ben said with a grin pasted on his face.
“Maybe you should just date the Cincinnati girls then,” Howard joked back. “I mean, they seem more your type anyway. You know, losing football games and having a terrible campus.”
Howard chuckled while Jacob and Jimmy smiled. Ben’s smirk was gone. He shoveled more eggs into his mouth.
After shooting the shit for half an hour, the group couldn’t put off doing their homework any longer. Before getting up, the foursome agreed to meet in Jimmy, Jacob and Ben’s shared dorm to watch March Madness that night.
When the group put their dishes on the conveyor belt, Howard noticed a mark on Jimmy’s arm that he hadn’t seen before. Multiple red scraggly lines moved horizontally across Jimmy’s wrist and forearms. None of the lines were straight, and multiple got shades darker and lighter throughout the line.
“What’s that man?” Howard asked.
“Oh, that?” Jimmy said. “Someone slashed me pretty fucking hard during the broomball game on Friday.”
“That doesn’t look like any slash I’ve seen,” Howard responded half-heartedly.
Before Jimmy could answer, Jacob turned around to join the conversation.
“You don’t remember that bulldog-looking motherfucker that tried to put me in a headlock?” he
“Nothing. Nothing,” Howard responded nervously.
“Oh, really? Then why are you out here trying to find him?” Jacob interrogated.
“What?” Howard asked confusingly. “I just found his laptop this morning and wanted to give it to him. This makes no sense.”
“I bet you know exactly what happened, and you want us arrested and kicked out,” Jimmy said angrily.
“I don’t even know what you’re talking about. I love you guys. You’re all my friends,” Howard responded.
“Oh, yeah? Then why would you want to find Collin?” Jacob questioned.
“I have no fucking idea what you’re talking about!” Howard shouted. “I already said I just wanted to give him his laptop!”
Howard shoved Jimmy away from him. His grip finally loosened. Howard stepped toward the door, but Ben got to it first.
“How could you do this?” Ben asked.
“I really have no idea what you’re talking about,” Howard said.
“Sure you don’t,” Jimmy piled on. “You just hate us because we knew each other in high school and you’re jealous. You can’t stand it.”
Howard shook his head.
“What?” he said. “You know that’s not true.”
The three roommates stared at Howard.
“Look, I don’t care what happened to Collin, and I’m not here to get you guys in trouble for whatever argument you got in or whatever,” he said.
“You really think we’re that dumb?” Jacob questioned. “You think we’re just going to admit to it?”
“Admit to what? I have no idea what you’re talking about,” Howard defended.
“We know you do,” Jimmy said. “You knew this morning when you were pretending to be our friend.”
Howard just put his hands up in frustration. He was more confused than anything else.
“You didn’t even know him,” Ben asserted.
“Know who?” Howard asked.
The three roommates looked at Howard. No one moved.
“Collin,” Jacob said, “Or what’s left of Collin out in that trash can.”
Jacob pointed towards the end of the hall where a large dumpster sits outside.
“What? You killed Collin? What the fuck guys?” Howard yelled back with tears forming in the corner of his eyes.
“We had to. He was getting in our way,” Jacob said. “All we wanted to do was live the college life we were promised, but he kept knocking on our door and taking away our beer. The final straw was when he was going to tell his boss that he found us doing cocaine in the bathroom.”
Howard couldn’t breathe. He was piecing together a seemingly impossible reality and felt more uneasy than ever before in his life.
“There’s no way you did that,” Howard said, almost out of breath.
“Like he said, we had to,” Ben said matter of factly.
“Just let me leave,” Howard said. “I don’t want to be here. I just want to go back to my room.”
“It’s too late,” Jimmy said flatly. “You know now, and that’s too much to let you leave.”
Just then, Jimmy slowly grabbed his broomball stick behind his back and started to raise it over his head.
“I just wanted to give back a laptop,” Howard said. “I can just leave and say I couldn’t find Collin.”
“No. You don’t understand Howard. No one can know.”
“But I thought we were friends,” Howard said.
“I just hope you don’t put up as much of a fight as Collin did. I don’t want another nasty mark on my arm,” Jimmy said.
He swung down as if he was hammering a nail into place. Howard tried to cover his head, but he was too late. S
1 UNPLUGGED ODYSSEY
THE MIAMI STUDENT MAGAZINE VIGNETTES
/vin∙yets/ plural noun
A collection of brief stories that provide a glimpse into the lives of different students
ELIZABETH SMITH
Small pockets of bright white light beam up from the reflective surface of the koi pond, dancing rhythmically to the gentle yet crashing waves that lick the edges of its enclosure. As I soak up the evolving scenery around my still body, early morning dew sticks slightly to my skin as I sway blissfully in my cocoon, its tethers hugging the trees with all its might.
Blissfully unaware of the pestering propagandic ploy that the small device we so naively coexist with implores us to consume. My lungs gulp down the impeccable air that unapologetically feeds the world we occupy.
Quiet thumping whispers across the space; its ginger footsteps, accompanied by two more sets of careful feet, break through the brush that lines the open field. The rustling that echoes from the brush slowly reveals a mother deer and her two fawns, enjoying their pleasant morning of munching on bright yellow dandelions and scintillating dewy grass.
With the annoyance of a pestering alarm clock and the silent, unspoken threats of a man with far too much power, the burst of a chime screeches into the air of this tiny snapshot of heaven. The deer bob their heads up quickly and shoot through the field, in fear that they too may succumb to the manipulations the device possesses. Nearby birds, who unabashedly swim in the refreshing pond, scurry far from this modern alien. As I reach into my pocket, a heavy sigh coldly bellows from my chest.
Its presence visually shouts out the recent notifications that I had missed, each one a digital breadcrumb leading me back to the noise I had momentarily left behind. The peace, once so tangible, begins to slip through my fingers like the mist that clings to the morning air. I take one last glance at the pond – now still, now silent – and for a fleeting second, I wonder what it might feel like to stay here, in the hush between moments, forever untouched.
But reality taps harder than any screen. So I rise from my swinging cocoon, the trees releasing me with reluctant grace, and I walk back toward the world that never seems to sleep – already longing for the one that just did. S
AYLA PEDEN
MY INVISIBLE ENEMY
On Sept. 13, I came face to face with my long-time enemy: hypochondria.
I jolted awake that morning with my heart pounding out of my chest.
On instinct, my pointer and middle fingers flew to the pulse point on my neck, anxiously trying to keep up with the beats as they drove on faster and faster. Pulling out my phone, I watched the time tick by while I counted every thump that radiated from my veins. My heart rate was 120 bpm.
Oh my god. What is happening?
I gulped down water in an attempt to quench my beating heart’s thirst. As I drank, a million thoughts ran through my head.
What if I’m dying? What if I’m having a heart attack? What if something is truly wrong?
However, my heart still raced on. The only solution I could think of was to try and sleep it off. I tossed and turned for the rest of the morning.
Eventually, the rivers running down my face turned into streams, and my breathing became less frantic. With my head in my hands, I took a deep breath, closed my eyes and listened to the world around me.
I noticed the birds chirping and the light breeze rustling the leaves. I heard someone laughing in the distance and cars passing by. I also heard someone walking up the stairs I sat on.
“Hey, are you OK?” the stranger asked.
Looking up, I see a man around my age, eyes wide with concern. I clearly did not look OK, as I later found out I had mascara all over my face. And yet, I gave a small smile and assured him I was fine.
While still concerned, the stranger made his way inside. As he left, I turned to look out at the rest of the world. After some time, I realized that my thoughts weren’t racing anymore, and neither was my heart. I hadn’t died. Oxygen still filled my lungs, and blood still pumped through my veins.
It was over for now and would certainly pop up again later. But, while I was still at peace, I could find comfort in the fact that I would live to see another day. S
In time, I managed to calm myself and go about my day. However, the classes that had distracted me ended, and I was thrust back into the world my mind had created. One by one, my worries and doubts came crawling back.
Why do I still feel weird? What if it isn’t just anxiety? Please let this just be anxiety.
I cringed at every thought and just wanted to get away. So, I decided to walk. I walked to Peabody Hall as if I were being chased and could somehow lose them if I kept moving. Alas, my fear caught up.
As I reached for the steps of this historical hall, tears flooded my vision. I reached a boiling point where my racing heart was too much to ignore. And so, for 15 minutes, I sat on those steps and let the warm September sun embrace me as I sobbed. All I wanted at that moment was to be OK.
feel the same? What if I didn’t become a professional writer, the only thing I strive for as a career?
The clock read 6:30 a.m. I wiped my tears and crawled to the bathroom sink. I squeezed toothpaste out and brushed my teeth while turning the shower on. I set aside a pair of black sweatpants and a grey hoodie.
Adonis could have let Rocky throw in the towel. He could have congratulated himself for making it that far and told himself that he did enough. Maybe the knockout proved that boxing wasn’t his calling, and he should return to his past life.
Instead, Adonis rose up, ignoring his swollen eye and cracked ribs. He needed to justify his place in that ring.
No higher being wrote out a plan for my life. But with every choice I make, I take up the responsibility to defend my existence. S
LILY BAYER
AN ALTAR OF ROCK ’N’ ROLL
It’s 6:55 p.m. My mom, sister, brother and I are watching TV in the living room when lights flash through the back windows. We face each other and sigh.
Dad’s home.
There are 22 minutes left in our show. Twenty-two minutes we will not be watching tonight.
At 7:02, my dad barges through the back door. He stomps into the living room and immediately connects to the speakers, cranks the volume and hits play to Bruce Springsteen radio. To our luck, every night at 7 p.m., Bruce Springsteen radio plays “The Price You Pay.”
And boy, do we pay a price.
He continues to blast music by The Grateful Dead, U2, Phish and then some. And the following night, like clockwork, the same songs, the same noise, start over again.
My dad is an atheist, and music is his religion. He doesn’t believe in God or Heaven. He doesn’t read the gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John. He engulfs the words of Garcia, Anastasio, Springsteen and Bono. He is a music evangelist, pushing his beliefs on all who will listen.
Growing up, organized religion was a part of my life but not overtly expressed. I attended Catholic schools from kindergarten through 12th grade, however, I struggled between grouping myself with opinions I didn’t align with and wanting to believe in something. Watching my dad pray at an altar of rock melodies and riffs actually helped me better understand a devotion to faith.
The irony isn’t lost that my atheist father shone a light on my spirituality. My dad’s love for music taught me to gravitate towards what feels right for me. It’s OK to believe whatever I want to believe, just as it’s OK to listen to whatever music I want to listen to.
My dad’s song of choice is “Terrapin Station” by The Grateful Dead, and mine is “Through the Dark” by One Direction. My dad chooses not to believe in any higher power, and I decided there’s something out there. Yet, my dad and I agree that “Golden” by My Morning Jacket is our favorite song.
Music is my religion. It is the uniting factor of love in my family, just as faith is for some people. The closing line, or should I say holy verse, of “Golden” sums it up best.
“You’ll be right here forever/ We’ll go thru this thing together/ And on heaven’s golden shore we’ll lay our heads.” S
Initially, my immune system was slow to respond to chemotherapy. However, its effects on the rest of my body were undeniable: I lost weight, battled constant bouts of nausea and my hair, including my eyebrows, fell out.
Pediatric cancer is rare, with only 16,000 children in the U.S. diagnosed each year – and an even smaller percentage of those cases being ALL. In the early 2000s, treatment options were limited, partly because there weren’t enough pediatric patients for extensive drug trials. That meant my family received numerous opportunities to participate in new trials for different types of chemotherapy and treatment combinations. These trials were tempting, especially since I hadn’t responded well to the initial standard chemotherapy pediatric patients received.
For most forms of leukemia, patients typically enter partial remission – a steady decrease in cancer cells –within the first few weeks of treatment. However, after running a blood test, we discovered I had a genetic marker called the Aneuploid blast population (D.I.). At the time, studies showed that pediatric ALL patients with a D.I. of 1.16 or higher responded better to treatment. My D.I. level was 1.206.
Instead of committing to a new drug trial, my parents and doctors opted for a higher dose of traditional chemotherapy. This came with serious risks, though, and my doctors feared it could severely impact my reproductive organs and heart.
After five months of treatment, my doctors announced that I had entered remission. During those months, I underwent three operations, including one where I woke up mid-surgery, nearly flat-lined, lost my beautiful red, curly ringlet hair and was left with a mountain of scars.
But at least I was declared in remission on Cinco De Mayo! Who doesn’t love tacos? (Actually, at the time, the only things I could stomach were cheese pizza and an overly green banana.)
Although I was in remission, I still couldn’t do the things I wanted, like start kindergarten. I had planned to go once I turned five, but doctor appointments to monitor my remission every week pushed that idea back a whole year. To keep me on track, my mom, a former teacher, taught me to read and do basic math at home.
I had no friends or siblings to play with; I was an only child living in a small, rural town far away from my cousins. So, my world became movie musicals. I watched “Singin’ in the Rain” and “Seven Brides for Seven Brothers” on repeat. The music, colors and costumes made me forget about my life for a while, especially the tiredness and sickness. These movies made me want to get up and dance and sing, even if my body didn’t feel like it. Everyone always wonders why I have such a passion for music and theater – this is where it began.
I was also fortunate to have a “wish” granted by the Make-a-Wish Foundation. Nationwide Children’s nominated me, and before I knew it, two Make-a-Wish ambassadors visited me, asking what my grand wish was. Of course, I wished for a pink playhouse in my backyard, and honestly, these coquette and cottage-core girls on social media would die for how frilly and pink it was. Outfitted with play-kitchen furniture, my pink playhouse became my little space of refuge – a space to relax, do crafts and let my creativity run wild.
Through the Make-a-Wish Foundation, I also had the opportunity to attend a gala at Ohio State University, where I sat at a table with Ohio’s lieutenant governor and former Ohio State football head coach Jim Tressel.
When it came time for me to start kindergarten in the fall of 2010, I had just turned 6 years old, making me the oldest kid in my class – a fact I was keenly aware of. My hair was just starting to grow back into a curly, afro-esque style, with pieces sticking out in every direction.
On the first day of class, my teacher gave a presentation to my classmates about my diagnosis and how I might need special care. To my classmates, I was already “different.” (I’m not calling out my teacher, though. I loved Mrs. Pauley, and she’s probably one of the best teachers I’ve ever had.)
From that year until well into second grade, I missed a lot of school for appointments and unexpected hospital stays. My immune system was still severely compromised from chemotherapy, so the flu and strep throat would knock me out for weeks. My parents picked up the work I missed from school and had me do it at home so I wouldn’t
fall behind. I even managed to get good grades! If I were to trace my work ethic to academics, it would probably originate from this.
I attended a tiny school, so most people knew I had cancer, especially after doctors from Nationwide Children’s came to give a school-wide presentation about it. But the following year, my school was consolidated with three other elementary schools. Suddenly, I was surrounded by classmates who had no idea about my diagnosis.
And I decided not to tell them.
Eventually, it came up, especially when I became close with someone. But with the rest of my classmates, I just carried on with my work and continued to be the introverted music girl. I didn’t want pity or special attention. I didn’t want them to treat me differently. For so long, I had received special treatment because I was fighting cancer; I was viewed as a face and an image of the cause. I just wanted to be appreciated as a human being.
I spent 12 years of school with the same 100 people, and when I say that about 70% of the class didn’t know I survived cancer, I’m not exaggerating. It wasn’t until I gave a presentation about leukemia in my anatomy class that most of them found out. Some were genuinely shocked they hadn’t known.
That’s because I’ve strived to lead a pretty normal life. When people are diagnosed with cancer, they can usually separate their life into the before and after. But no one talks about how, when you’re a 4-year-old cancer survivor, you don’t remember the before – you only remember the after. And that “after” becomes your normal life.
So, what is my normal life? It’s pretty much the same as everyone else’s. I just go to the doctor a little more frequently.
Every summer, I have my big annual appointment at Nationwide Children’s Hospital. (Yes, I am 20 years old, but I’m one of their few patients who has been in remission without relapse, so they like to keep me around.) I get blood tests, and every six years, I need an echocardiogram, which is an ultrasound of my heart, to ensure it is growing and functioning correctly.
This year, I celebrated being 16 years cancer-free. Technically, I am considered “cured.”
But there’s no cure for the lingering effects cancer has on me.
I can never donate blood to the American Red Cross. That means I can’t give people a service I received several times myself: blood transfusions. And no one can make me forget the moment, at 15 years old, when a doctor told me that freezing my eggs might be one of the only ways to have children. The scar across my chest and the hole-like scar at the base of my neck from my chemotherapy and medicine tubes have barely faded, and part of me thinks they might always be visible.
I don’t want to sound like I’m ungrateful. I’m one of the lucky ones. There are so many families who have lost a loved one to cancer or have a family member with persistent or recurrent cancer. I’m blessed to live my beautiful, happy life. But the person I am today is not the person I would have been without my cancer diagnosis. Would I be obsessed with performing perfectly in school? Would I be passionate about music? Art? Maybe, but I’ll never know.
For 16 years, I’ve been going through life as someone different. But I embrace it. I love who I am, and a part of that is because of my cancer.
I love that I get to tell my parents I love them, that I get to read my collection of paperback books and that I get to smell the fragrance of peach roses. I love my life, and 16 years later, I’m grateful I’m still here to enjoy it all. S
But there’s no cure for the lingering effects cancer has on me.
BY STELLA POWERS
Blast from the past :
Taking a journey down cluttered memory lane
Design by Olivia Michelsen
Every kid knows it, and every kid hates it.
The moment my parents would ask me to clean my room, I’d immediately fill with dread. I thought of every possible way to put it off as a kid. But now, as an adult, I have a newfound appreciation for the task.
What may seem like the chore of nightmares proved to be a blast from the past, filled with memories, nostalgia and longing for what once was.
Over winter break, I decided it was time to complete the once-dreaded task. My room back home had been messy since summer, and it kept getting worse and worse.
It started with moving out after my first year — everything from my dorm room ended up on my bedroom floor, and it kept piling up. Eventually, it was hard to see the carpet underneath. I never got the chance to clean it because I immediately started working that summer, and the cycle kept repeating itself.
While I have cleaned my floor a few times since then, I must confess: It had been years since I actually went
through every drawer, shelf and bin in my room. Between that and the mess on my carpet from moving back in, I couldn’t stand being in my room. Messes give me anxiety, and I was living in it.
I set a goal for myself and decided it was time to organize my room. Not just my regular pick-up clean, either. I needed to go through every drawer and crevice and clean until it was perfect.
As you may imagine, the task proved to be incredibly time-consuming. I spent countless hours emptying bins and boxes, wanting to organize everything from scratch. This ended up being the hardest part because after hours of work, it looked like zero progress had been made. Actually, it sometimes appeared worse.
Cleaning your room can suck. It’s tiring, it takes forever and, at the end of the day, it’s not fun. I always find things I would rather spend my time doing than picking clothes and boxes off my floor. I could watch a new movie, listen to music, visit with friends and family or pick up an extra shift at work. Why would I waste my time picking up a messy room?
But it needs to be done. And sometimes, it’s exactly what you need.
Believe it or not, going through years and years of items brings back memories. You never know what you tossed in a bin however many years ago, or whose birthday cards are stashed away in your dresser.
This was more than true for me. Clothes, bags, stuffed animals, books and anything else you can imagine flooded the carpet. I had bins and drawers that used to serve a specific purpose but now were filled with random stuff.
The first thing I found was a TY brand stuffed animal. Actually, a whole basket of them. As a kid, my grandma, who passed when I was 3, gifted me these at any opportunity she got. They had been sitting in the back of my closet for years, and digging them up brought back countless memories with my grandma and these Beanie Baby plushies.
My favorite one was a baboon. I fittingly named him Baby Baboon, and I was obsessed. He had to be by my side at all times or all hell would break loose.
At one point, I lost him, and it was unbelievably devastating. Determined to find him, I started a search party for the tiny, stuffed baboon. I scoured the house, calling, “Baby Baboon, Baby Baboon, where are you? Are you hiding?” I thought maybe, just maybe, if he heard my voice, he’d come running back to me. Makes sense, right?
Unfortunately, to my shock, he didn’t come running into my arms. Maybe he was truly gone. I was terrified.
My parents, on the other hand, had their own idea. Baby Baboon was nowhere to be found, and I was inconsolable without him. So my mom and dad had the brilliant idea to buy another stuffed baboon — the exact one I had grown so fond of.
I couldn’t tell the difference. A while later, we found the original. The one and only Baby Baboon was safe and home, but now there were two.
During my deep clean, I came across not just one Baby Baboon, but both. I mentioned it to my mom, who got a kick out of it because of how ridiculous the whole situation was. It had me reminiscing on that era of my life and how, at that time, losing a stuffed animal felt like life or death. To this day, I still own two stuffed baboons.
I also found my stuffed lemur, fittingly named Lemur. As you can tell, I was very creative when it came to naming my toys. Lemur also frequented my side — I rarely went anywhere without her.
Lemur first came into my life when I was a kid. I purchased her from the gift shop at the indoor waterpark, Kalahari. When I was younger, going to Kalahari was an annual Christmas tradition. It was a blast — spending time with my family and riding waterslides (or, in my case, mostly swimming in the kids’ pool) was a highlight of my year. My cousins also purchased lemurs of their own on the trip, and seeing Lemur again reminded me of how much I loved my family.
When I came across the stuffed animal in the back of my closet, I found myself reminiscing once again. I longed for an easier life, where my biggest concern was making sure I knew where my favorite plushies were. At the end of the day, it was simpler. I didn’t have the same worries and responsibilities I do today. Life was easy, fun and carefree.
Instead, my current concern was cleaning my room. I wasn’t playing with my toys all the time, and Lemur and Baby Baboon were no longer my primary responsibility. I had to deal with work, school and everything that fell between. No one tells you how fast time flies. In the blink of an eye, the world as you know it could cease to exist, and everything is completely different. It’s a weird adjustment, and I’m not sure anyone ever gets used to change.
Old plushies weren’t the only thing I came across, though. In my box of books, I came across a small, empty, never-been-used notebook. It was cute, too. The cover was full of flowers, and the notebook said, “dream big,
“Stella,
to keep all of your wonderful stories forever.” Even stranger, it was dated Dec. 24, 2014, almost exactly 10 years from the day I found it cleaning”
bright, beautiful dreams.” Inside was a note from my other grandma: “Stella, to keep all of your wonderful stories forever.” Even stranger, it was dated Dec. 24, 2014, almost exactly 10 years from the day I found it while cleaning.
I immediately called my grandma. It was so strange — how did she know, 10 years ago, that I would end up being a writer? It was full circle. She got me a notebook to write my stories in before I even wrote stories. At least, not to the extent that I do now. I now keep this notebook on my bedside table at all times.
I found another journal, too, signed by my elementary school best friend. We were inseparable — in the third-grade awards, we both won “most creative.” We were always a pair, and everyone knew us as one.
Inside the notebook was a message similar to my grandma’s, only it was clearly written by a third grader.
“Happy birthday!” The message read. “Fill this with all of your soon-to-be-famous stortys. From, Ashley aka your B.F.F.”
“Stortys.” Every time I look at this notebook, I burst out laughing. Ashley, who is now in college studying English,
wrote “stortys” in my notebook. I immediately sent her a photo of it, and she made a funny comment about how supportive she was.
I also discovered countless birthday and holiday cards. A bunch were in my grandma's beautiful, hardly legible cursive handwriting, filled with sweet messages from holidays occurring during my 19 years of life.
I found cards from my parents, my brother, my cousins, my aunts and uncles, my grandparents and my friends. Some friends I still talk to each and every day, and others I haven’t spoken to in years. When they were written, I thought I would be friends with these people for the rest of my life.
In middle school, my best friend and I were inseparable. We spent every minute of every day we possibly could together. She would spend weekends at my house, go on vacations with my family and sat with me in pretty much every class.
I came across a birthday card from her from when we were in middle school. It was entirely handwritten, with her words filling both pages. There wasn’t any space left when she finished. The note consisted of inside jokes, kind words and remarks about how we would be best friends forever.
issue could you find illustrations of a murder mystery, an abandoned uranium plant and a loving grandmother’s wallpaper, but it’s that kind of unexpected contrast that made this issue so special.
We also want to thank the amazing writers and editors who made this issue what it is. A special shoutout is also needed for our editor-in-chief, Maya, who made this issue possible. Collaboration has been at the core of this magazine, and we’re so proud of what we’ve created together. A lot of heart (and many, many late nights) went into these pages – we hope you enjoy every bit of it.
Caitlin Curran & Caitlin Dominski
WORK WITH US
whatever story lingers on in your mind, we hope that from flipping through the pages of our latest issue, something sticks with you.
The magazine is unique — from deep personal histories to reported pieces to even our first fiction piece, The Miami Student Magazine is an incredible showcase of our talented team. It has been our joy to work alongside them, and our wonderful editor-in-chief, Maya Svec. We’ve loved being your seconds-in-command for the past year Once again, thank you for reading, and we look forward to seeing you next issue.
Sam Norton & Stella Powers
At TMSM, we are always seeking talented writers, designers, editors and photographers to bring our pages to life. Are you passionated about crafting captivating stories, creating stunning visual designs or polishing content to perfection?
