one and only...

Feature/Magazine writing has been my favorite course this semester.  

I signed up for the class solely for the professor.  About two years ago, in my first Mass Media course, this guy came to speak, his name was Bob Levey.  He had been a columnist for the Washington Post for 30+ years, and had recently retired.  He had chosen to come to my university to teach.

He was a great speaker, and upon finishing his talk he told the class "my office is up on the third floor, come by any time if you'd like to talk about journalism."  I looked at my friend John and said "let's take this guy out for coffee."  So we did, and we had a wonderful time.  

So, two years later, when registering for classes I saw Bob's name as an option for one of my classes.  I immediately registered, and have had a fabulous time during this semester.  It's obvious that he is not teaching for the money, he commutes weekly from D.C. to teach, he teaches because he loves journalism.  

This past Tuesday, we read a magazine story from the Washington Post, and then were given a "quiz" assignment.  (PS- Read the story, it's long, I mean really really long, but a wonderful story!)  Note: these quizzes are not multiple choice deals, they're long essays about style and general journalistic concepts from the stories we study.  So, I wrote my essay and hit "send" and left class, I didn't even proofread, I was feeling a bit ill and wanted to leave as soon as possible. 

Here's the best part of the story: I got a reply e-mail from Bob yesterday with my graded quiz.  He said, 

"Superb work... A plus (the first and only one I've ever given at UMemphis- take a bow.)"

Consider this my BOW.... Thank you very much! 

I'm pretty excited about this.  Talk to you soon!