Hi, I’m Caroline Hazelbaker here at Sunwest, and I recently started and I’m the youngest person in the office by, probably a year or two. So, when I first came here, I noticed every morning that the copy of the Dallas Morning News was on my desk. And just like at home, when I’d see the paper on the coffee table, I’d walk by – I’d acknowledge it was there, but that’s about it. I never read it, never really engaged with it at all, because that’s just how I’ve grown up. And being a Gen Z’er, it’s just not common for people my age to read the paper. But then when I came here, I was asked, “Hey, I want you to read the paper for a couple weeks. Read it online and read it in print, and then write about your experience.” And truthfully, that made me laugh, because what experience was I going to have other than knowing more current events, and I guess just knowing more, what was happening in Dallas, in the country, and in the world. Well, I did read the paper for a couple weeks, and I was quite surprised by the experience that I had.

Well first of all, I liked reading the print version more than the online version and being a 22-year-old, I’m supposed to be a tech guru apparently, but I still liked having the copy in my hand and I could read that while drinking coffee in the morning. It just became a really pleasant start to my day. And then I liked that I kind of knew what was going on in town, and I could have conversations about it, and really just – I don’t know – feel more of a citizen of this great state of Texas. Something that was really, really neat about the whole thing is that I loved to see everyone’s reactions when they’d come into the office and they’d see me with a copy of the paper just strewn about and they’d get to ask me, “So what do you think about this?” or, “What do you think about that?” and it just became something that I really enjoyed and I’ve continued to read the paper even though my two weeks of reading it – that assignment is over. But now it’s going to become a normal part of my day and I love it, even as the Gen Z’er that I am.

To read more about my experience of reading the paper, go on over to www.sunwestpr.com/blog.