Lights out

SJI students turned to each other to cope with the power outage at the Stoney Creek Inn in Columbia.

The lights went out as soon as I closed the bathroom door on Sunday night. The first thing I did was look for family members I had met two days before. I hopped off the plane in St. Louis at 8:45 on Friday morning, ready to go through a week-long sports journalism boot camp with 11 college students from across the country. I was scared and apprehensive as I entered a new environment with some talented journalists. Then Sunday, the power went out at our the hotel. With my phone battery at 15 percent, I turned on the flashlight and looked for my Sports Journalism Institute classmates. We all had the same idea, which was to look for each other. As I stood in the dark with my arms crossed, I looked around and thought to myself, "I'll miss this new family of mine when the week is over." -- Damian Reynolds