Illustration by MK Brittain
By Thomas Iacobucci
I had my first brush with The Crow’s Nest when I attended a college fair hosted by the university in 2015. As I was leaving, a newspaper stand riddled with graffiti titled “The Crow’s Nest” sat abandoned in a corner.
I took a copy. Read it. Recycled it. And that was that.
Fast forward two years, and I’m at “Get On Board Day” with my partner. We walk. We talk. We meet campus officials. I dodge club solicitors while my partner invites them into conversation with open arms. I’m still not a student, but a guest of one, so I might as well see what this university has to offer.
She’d been here a year already, navigating the campus with ease. Eventually, she ran into an old friend at one of the club booths. They talked while I stood idly by. This curly-haired kid, no older than 18, was sitting behind the same booth. After a few moments of silence, he asked me if I was interested in journalism. I was. In fact, I was considering this very school to pursue a degree in it. He asked what I was into. I said photography, to which he replied that he was the current photo editor.
Instant sparks. It was fate. It was serendipitous. But then it was over. I still wasn’t a student and didn’t know if I’d ever be one again.
It’s 2019 now. As it turns out, I was being dramatic. I’m enrolled at USF St. Petersburg. I’m a semester into the journalism program, and I’ve yet to get involved. The students on staff at The Crow’s Nest were “popular.” They were the “cat’s pajamas” of the journalism school, and if anyone understood social hierarchy, it was me. I steered clear.
Fate works in strange ways, though. Eventually, I get invited to a meeting. An honor, I thought, until I realized all the meetings were open. I kind of fit in with the group. The curly-headed kid was still there. Pop culture references were in abundance, and everyone from all these different backgrounds seemed to get along well.
I never left after that meeting, grandfathering me into a position on staff for my senior year. Maybe that one issue I picked up four years prior planted the seed for me to join the CN. Maybe seeing that issue was serendipitous. Maybe talking to the curly-haired kid was fate.
These past two semesters have been a whirlwind. I photographed Tyler, The Creator, Twenty-One Pilots, and the 1975 in the span of two months. I watched as the St. Petersburg and Sarasota-Manatee campuses became closer to consolidating with USF Tampa. I got to see what happens when you mix art with marine sciences. I watched as the world became infected with coronavirus and classes became remote. I was at the forefront of breaking campus news, but it never felt like work.
Courtesy of Thomas Iacobucci
When you’re forced into an office with colleagues for hours on end every week, something happens. Walls crumble and barriers become broken. Those colleagues become friendlier and friendlier until they’re no longer colleagues. They’re your friends.
The love and care this staff shares for each other is insurmountable. I slept through an entire meeting one time, and Emily and Katlynn started checking police and car crash reports when they didn’t hear from me after an hour. An hour!
I forget to text Clarice back on a near daily basis, but she never falters in her friendship toward me.
That kid with the curls whom I met in 2017 was Jonah, who went from a stranger, to a colleague, to a workplace proximity acquaintance, to a friend.
I remember thinking MK had dope style and was a talented artist, and I was super impressed when she figured out how to create a newspaper layout for the first time in one single sitting.
Dylan’s music taste was impeccable (while sometimes not), and he was the sole reason I didn’t starve every Sunday.
JT opened my eyes to worlds unknown and unseen. (We got really into Dungeons and Dragons… as a team building exercise… not because we all love fantasy and adventure.)
And the deep, rumbling belly laugh I got to hear from Rob every Thursday during our adviser meetings taught me to enjoy the little things.
I don’t know what I’ll cherish most from my time at The Crow’s Nest. I’m grateful for the experiences and opportunities this small college newspaper has given me and only wish I would have paid attention to the universe’s signs sooner.
All I know is that working and hanging out with this group of people felt familiar — like everything that happened before was meant to lead me here. I’m really going to miss it.
Yours Truly,
Tommy Iacobucci
Former Photography Editor at The Crow’s Nest
P.S.
It was a year that will not be surely forgotten.
