FEELS SO EMPTY WITHOUT MIM: School starts tomorrow at my alma mater, St. Louis Park High School in Minnesota (it started last week at my other alma mater), and this year will be the first in over 30 years without legendary journalism teacher Miriam "Mim" Kagol, who retired in June. In addition to teaching journalism, Mim advised the school's perennially award-winning newspaper the Echo, of which I was a writer and Student Life Editor from 1994-'96. I give Mim credit for teaching me just about everything I know about writing and setting me on the path towards journalism; New York Times foreign-affairs columnist and three-time Pulitzer Prize winner Thomas Friedman has gone on record as giving Mim the same accolades. I also think it says something that even though Friedman and myself both share another alma mater (Brandeis), we both learned more from our high school writing teacher than from any journalism professor in college.
Posted by Stephen Silver at September 2, 2002 10:37 PM