Friday, June 18, 2021
Curtain call
Burns Hargis is ready for his post-retirement career.
Connor Burgan
OSU sophomore Ryder Bates had the “typical freshmen experience” yanked away from him last year. Between following guidelines and navigating through a socially-distanced, mask-filled campus, Bates began to have limited time for himself. “One of the major problems was the lack of free time I was offered due to work and no time off. All work and no play,” he said. Now that OSU announced that masks and social distancing are gone, sophomores like Bates and other students are finally looking to flip the page this upcoming school year and finally know what it’s
like to be a college student. Sophomore Matthew Sitar can’t wait for this. “Arguably, the biggest part of going away to college was stripped away from us,” Sitar said. “A mask free, fully filled campus will allow us to resume college as we dreamt it.” With COVID playing a massive role in effecting the day-to-day activities of all students, some felt they had little opportunity to get to know their classmates and peers. Even when they did, those faces and smiles were hidden underneath a cloth face covering. Ginna Timmons began feeling the difficulty of meeting new people when arriving in Stillwater. “I feel with wearing the masks didn’t give us (students) the chance to open up as much as we See Mask off on pg.3
Joshua Cleary
As Burns Hargis sits in the same office he’s had for 13 years, he looks around and notices that everything has changed. He’s not referring to the $2.2 billion OSU has raised during his time or even the various buildings erected during his tenure. He’s talking about the boxes in his office. Every time he looks to the right, there’s a box. Left? Another one. Now in the last two weeks of his presidency, Hargis is seemingly drowning in cardboard because of his upcoming
Many OSU students are looking forward to a more normal fall semester.
move out process. “I feel like I’m working for Mayflower van and storage,” Hargis said of his last two weeks. “Packing up the house, packing up the office. I’m sitting here and there’s probably 20 boxes right in my sight.” Hargis hates moving, but says moving the items out from his office won’t be a far journey. In fact, it’s only a few steps away. Next semester, Hargis will stay involved at OSU by holding a chair in the university’s center for ethical leadership and will even have an office at the Student Union. The position is part time and unpaid, but Hargis felt it was important to stay involved at OSU. “I’ll be working with our leadership institute and it’ll be interesting, I’m very interested in the subject See Curtain on pg.2
Maddison Farris