Remembering Unleashed

By ANDY CARROLL
UNLEASHED STAFF
May 1, 2009. This date was going to offer one of the toughest “goodbye” moments of my senior year: The due date of my final Unleashed column.
But now, with the ending of the Unleashed program, which was in its tenth year, May 1 is now a day I will spend simply on a school service immersion trip in New Orleans, with columns and deadlines no longer on my mind.
As was the case with many of my fellow teenage staffers, the announcement that Unleashed had been terminated came as a sudden and heartbreaking surprise.
Sure, we no longer had our Tuesday section, but I had always thought that the end, if it was to come this year, would be upon completion of the school year, not on a seemingly random and insignificant Friday in February.
Granted, this year was always bound to be the last one for me, as I am headed for college in the fall. But now, what would have been my senior column is no longer just a reflection on my three years as a reporter and columnist; it’s also partly an obituary for Unleashed, something I didn’t expect I would write.
Lately, there has been a lot said about the legacy of Unleashed. From a broad perspective, there’s no denying that this legacy involves bringing the words and opinions of local teenagers to the public, and offering young writers a look into the world of journalism.
But Unleashed isn’t confined to just one legacy; there are many, each one relating to the individual writer.
For me, Unleashed was a life-changing experience. I have come a long way from the shy and awkward freshman I was when I first joined the team nearly three years ago, and much of that is due to how this program helped me to find my voice, both inside and outside the many features, reviews and columns I wrote.
The first article I wrote for Unleashed was a feature on teen volunteer work, which took me months to complete. Though a neutral take without opinions is necessary in newspaper feature writing, there was still such an incredible anonymity to it; anyone could have written it.
Today, anonymity isn’t something that figures into my writing. As a columnist for the past two years, I got the chance to voice my opinions and present part of myself to readers — and in doing so, learned a lot about myself.
I’m no longer that shy kid who hides himself in anonymity. Thanks largely to the confidence and revelation of ability I’ve gained through my writing, I have found my voice as both a writer and a human being. I can’t even begin to speculate on how different the past three years would have been without Unleashed.
When I attended the final team meeting last month, it was perfectly clear that I wasn’t alone in this way of thinking. Though tears weren’t shed and the spirit was mostly upbeat, there was no doubt that this program would be sorely missed, even for those of us seniors who would have been out the door in a matter of months anyway.
In the entire time I was part of Unleashed, I always worked with a group of peers that was dedicated and passionate, about as far from that stereotype of disrespectful and disinterested teenagers as people can get. For all the writers past and present, this wasn’t just another fun, little afterschool activity; it was a chance to break that stereotype and show the community just what a group of talented and driven teenagers could do.
For the past 10 years, I’ve participated in Unleashed as both a young reader who aspired to be like the older high school students whose work was in the paper and as a staffer seeing my own work in print as well as the work of people I know and talk to.
The one perspective that, at least for now, I will not get to take is that of an older reader, removed from the program, reading the work of younger writers. The section has had so many breathtaking articles over the years that I don’t doubt that I would have continued to be amazed by the work of future staffers.
But as it is, Unleashed has reached its end. And in this end, I realize just how incredible an opportunity was available. This wasn’t some little school paper; it was the Big Leagues, “The Show.”
Unleashed’s ending comes amidst the continuing downward spiral of print journalism. The idea that I may be describing newspapers to my children as a relic of the past is no longer some absurd fantasy.
But the power of words will never die, nor will their ability to deeply move us.
I call on readers to remember all the young people who have worked on this program for this past decade, and to never forget the ways that journalism can move and change all of us.
And I address my final words as a columnist for the Herald-Republic’s Unleashed team to any other young writers reading this: Don’t stop. Never stop.
I know that so long as there is but one more breath in my body, I never will.

• Andy Carroll is a member of the Yakima Herald-Republic’s Unleashed team. He attends La Salle High School.