When I think of my Houghton experience, music and writing seem to be the two themes that I expressed myself through.
I was a writing major, majoring in fiction: my key writing outlet was The Houghton Star, not the Lanthorn.
I wasn’t a music major, but I sang with the Houghton College choir for 4 years. Both events were significant influences.
How I started both were loaded with accident and coincidence.
During the application process I learned that Houghton had a “good” music program, but not being a music major, I had never compared programs to realize just how good. On the other had, I had always been one of the better musicians in the small schools and churches I had grown up in, so I knew I wanted to continue music in college if possible.
So I checked into auditions for what choirs were available. There was a College Choir and a Chapel Choir. I had no real clue about the difference, so I asked the person I was talking to, who happened to be Professor Reigles, and decided to sign up for a College Choir audition.
I had no idea that the person I was talking to was the director of the Chapel Choir, and I made the decision to try out for the College Choir. So I probably didn’t make the very best first impression on her.
I didn’t realize until later that the College Choir was the “premiere” choir for the college. I see in my journal that my audition got moved several times before I got in, and then all my stressing over it turned out to be unnecessary, as I made it in the same way I usually make it in — a combination of decent talent and the fact that fewer guys than women compete for musical spots.
On the writing front, I was a writing major, or wanted to be, but one doesn’t declare a major that early. I did get Professor Leax for POW (good old Principles of Writing), and I knew he was the professor that most writing majors got as their advisor, and I can see in my journal an intention to impress him and get his guidance behind my writing.
But the thing I seemed most focused on was the chance to become a writer/reporter for The Houghton Star. I attended an informational session where I was apparently the only new person present. When I stepped forward (non-too-boldly my journal says), I learned they worked by assignment (sort of like stringers), and they gave me an assignment to write a paragraph about the freshmen intreat that was going to be incorporated into an article on all the retreats. That article was never published.
But they either liked my writing well enough, or just needed enough people to write, that I did get an article in the first edition, and several other articles throughout the year. From what I can tell by reading them now, my writing was okay but not spectacular.
But I did certainly enjoy my bi-line on each article, along with having my name in the staff box as one of the staff reporters.
As I do a review of my writing, and the editions of the Houghton Star, I see that most of my articles Freshman year were of the “press release” type, rewriting and fleshing out basic informational articles.
I also see that, though I may have been the only freshman to show up at the informational session, Lorry Armold, who would later be one of my competitors for editor of the Star, made it not only in as an editor, but also on the production team. She wrote more, longer, and more in-depth articles than I did Freshman year.
I, on the other hand, checked in for assignments, wrote what was assigned, and expected hard effort to be recognized and rewarded. I hadn’t figured out the need to network with the editorial staff to vie for better assignments.
As a result, my assignments petered out in the second semester. That was when I wrote two letters to the editor that got published. They were letters from someone on the paper staff, that yet had the voice of an outsider.
And that tone, I think, is where I first began to be noticed by the larger Houghton student community. That tone would sharpen, for better or worse, during Sophomore year.
At The Rainbow 