I do not usually believe in things being “meant to be.”

I do not believe in love at first sight. I do not buy into astrology and what I should allegedly be like as a Cancer. I do not believe there is a God.

I know, however, that Elizabeth Peters and I were meant to meet.

I began at Shippensburg University in August of 2021, and since we were still in the midst of the pandemic, I came to campus for my orientation four months prior on April 30. That is where Elizabeth and I first met. Exactly three years to the day later, on April 30, 2024, our final Slate has been published.

When I came for orientation, I could instantly tell that Elizabeth was the type of woman who commands any space she is in. As we went through icebreakers on the academic quad, she got an anxious group to open up and become chatty. We share the same major, so that instantly attracted me to her as well.

Later that summer, I reached out to Elizabeth over GroupMe and would later learn I was her only orientation kid that year to reach out. I met her again on move-in day, where she lovingly threatened me to attend all of the Fall Welcome Week events — so I did.

As you can see to the left of this column, we have grown quite close since then. She pushed me to join The Slate sometime in 2022 as a copy editor, and now this is my life. 

Although I can lay out the chronological timeline of how Elizabeth and I have interacted over the last three years, it is much harder to quantify the emotional impact. I’ll try my best.

I would not have stepped into the position of managing editor if anyone other than Elizabeth was our editor-in-chief. Full stop. It was not a position I had initially planned to apply for, and it was her encouragement — let’s call it loving threats — that made me accept the offer from then-EIC Piper Kull.

I would not be the journalist that I am today if not for Elizabeth’s leadership. One of our many inside jokes this year has been that she does the pictures and I do the words. Elizabeth is highly skilled in InDesign, the software we use to design our pages, and I was very concerned about having to learn page layout on the fly. 

Knowing that she will happily add borders to all our images or spend 10 minutes drawing a tennis ball while I could focus on covering the many breaking news stories this year was a blessing.

But the hardest thing to say goodbye to on May 11 will simply be our friendship. The Slate’s reputation among some of our student body has been rocky — to say the least — this year, and Elizabeth was always there to stress about the latest thing in our Gmail, staff conflicts, SGA meetings and so many off-the-record gossip sessions. We have had more 11 p.m. phone calls than either of us would care to admit.

She is my mentor. My partner-in-crime. My Slate mother and wife — it’s complicated.

We have spent a combined total of more than a thousand hours in The Slate office together since August, and yet if I could, I would ask her to stay for a thousand more. Maybe even ten thousand. 

Because if you are lucky enough to get to know, work with and love Elizabeth Peters, you will not want to let her go.

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