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Karen emboldened me and all The Chronicle staff to feel that we had infinite potential. As a mentor, as with many things, Karen was unmatched.
Karen was a loyal member of our neighborhood book club, whose fellow readers remembered Karen on May 25, appropriately, Memorial Day.
It is hard to imagine how anyone could offer better leadership to any organization at Duke than Karen Blumenthal provided for The Chronicle during the past few decades.
Karen seemed like everything a journalist should be, and I wanted to be like her, except for her disturbing love of the Dallas Cowboys.
That was quintessential Karen—she was ready and willing to give support and guidance, but she wasn’t going to be all delicate about it.
If a moral obligation to care for our resource-poor neighbors is not persuasive enough, I hope self-preservation will drive us towards more sustainable public health policies.
You are less likely to take beneficial economic risks; the kind meant for the secure. You just want to make sure your family has what they need. You are extra attentive to messages from your parents. Usually, it means something is wrong.
At the end of every academic year, the Chronicle invites graduating staff to write a senior column examining their time at 301 Flowers.
Though most (read: all) of my contributions to the Chronicle have been photos, I’m glad I had the words to say this.
That was when I got it. I still remember the visceral excitement I felt when writing about what I saw, the vicarious emotion that bled through my recording of the postgame interview.
To my Chronicle, thank you for allowing me to cover the Duke community and find one within it, too. Thank you for giving me a home.
For hours and hours as I drove north on I-95, I desperately grasped for memories like a child catching fireflies, trying to chase and hold onto as many as possible.
How many young Duke fans get the chance to grow up and sit courtside at a Duke basketball game in Cameron, and then go into the locker room to interview Grayson Allen or Zion Williamson?
In the main field of Duke Gardens, where the gargantuan stick sculpture used to make its home, there’s a grassy slope under the shade of a magnolia tree.
While I am technically saying goodbye to The Chronicle, this is not the end.
It was my pleasure to participate in this game of telephone for four brief years. So ring ring, V. 116—it’s your time to pick up.
After only writing about other people for years, it’s not super comfortable to write about myself, much less about me crying. Here we go.
I hate endings. Whether or not the good times have outweighed the bad, something about the finality of last moments will always make me cry.
When you put up defenses against the discomfort of a broken world, you also cheat yourself out of the opportunity to see its beauty.
Quarantine has forced me to reflect on my Duke experience too much, too soon. That includes reading back on many of my old columns—one of the few constants of my time here.
Do you have a question about Duke?
