Looking Back - A Letter to the Mountain Eagle

By Wildert Marte 

ONEONTA — My two semesters working at The Mountain Eagle became one of the most meaningful stretches of my college years. What started as a simple question after Professor Avitabile’s SUNY Oneonta night class “Can I write for the paper?” turned into a full experience where I learned how to research, edit, compare past to present, and understand the rhythm of local news. 

In my first semester, most of my work lived in history. I spent hours inside old newspapers, reading the way people in Gilboa, Roxbury, Hobart, Cobleskill, and so many other towns wrote about their lives. I edited stories from the early 1900s, compared old businesses to the ones standing there today, and brought forgotten headlines back into the light. It was the kind of work that teaches patience, squinting at worn print, learning old phrasing, and figuring out how to write about the past in a way that feels alive without changing the truth of it. That semester taught me how much a small detail can matter the price of coal in 1905, what a post office looked like in 1911, how a single paragraph in a 1940 edition of the Cobleskill Index could show the entire rhythm of a community. I learned how to match our format, keep the tone steady, and still leave space for the humanity underneath. 

My second semester felt different: bigger. I moved from strictly editing historical material to writing full articles on meetings, local decisions, early holiday traditions, and what life looked like across multiple decades. I covered everything from water projects to Thanksgiving gatherings in 1905, from church announcements to early advertisements that revealed what families valued. Some of the writing stayed rooted in history, while other pieces focused on present-day board meetings where motions passed, budgets were approved, and neighbors asked questions that showed how much they care about their towns. By then, I understood the flow of our newspaper clear openings, strong middle sections, and a closing that ties the piece back to the community. I became faster at drafting, better at structuring, and more confident that I could take raw information and turn it into something readable, respectful, and useful. 

Working for The Mountain Eagle gave me something rare: the chance to feel connected to places I didn’t grow up in but learned to appreciate through their stories. It wasn’t a job that faded into a checklist. It became part of my routine, part of my confidence, and honestly part of who I am becoming as a writer and student. There were great moments seeing my name in print, joking with Matt about edits, sending in articles at midnight, and realizing that my work was contributing to something much bigger than an assignment. Even the quiet parts, like editing alone with old PDFs open on my laptop, felt meaningful because I knew I was preserving real history. As my first professional internship it changed me in a way I didn’t expect. Coming in as a college student with more passion than experience, I learned quickly what real deadlines felt

like and how much trust goes into handing someone a story with your name on it. The work taught me discipline, detail, and patience, especially in that first semester when most of my assignments were tied to editing historical newspapers, comparing old businesses to the modern day, and keeping the tone true to the original paper. Those quiet hours of editing helped me grow as a writer, but they also built my confidence. And when I returned with the “I’m Back” article, it felt like a personal milestone proof that I belonged in that newsroom and that the work I was doing had value beyond class assignments. It showed me that this wasn’t just an internship, it was the beginning of my professional voice. 

Now, as both semesters close, and I have graduated, I'm stepping back from the weekly pace but not stepping away. I already have articles written ahead of time that will be published in the coming weeks, and whenever something interesting or historical calls my attention, I know I can return with a new piece. I've always been my own biggest critic, so for a long time I never thought much of my work. I would hand things in and immediately overthink every line, convinced it wasn’t good enough. But once people started giving me real compliments about my writing, my articles, even my photos it finally hit me that the quality was there. Hearing that from others gave me a kind of reassurance I could never give myself. These two semesters at The Mountain Eagle gave me discipline, pride, and a deeper love for writing. More than anything, they showed me that this newspaper is more than paper and ink, it's a connection point, and I’m grateful I got to be a part of it. Thank you to everyone who appreciated my work along the way, and a special thank-you to Matthew Avitabile for giving me this opportunity.