I have sat in a lot of uncomfortable chairs for this newspaper.
School board meetings that ran past 11 p.m. A protest in Starke in 105-degree heat, watching people stand across the road from a military base that might have become the next immigration detention center. A barbershop on Archer Road, listening to a female barber explain, plainly, what it costs to work in a room that wasn't built for you.
A parking lot of an apartment complex, where a mother told me she loads 11 kids into a seven-seat car each morning — not because it was her job, but because her heart wouldn't let them walk across 13th Street alone. A Main Street sidewalk at 6 a.m. to cover a homeless encampment removal. Newberry community barbecues after Sunday service.
The chairs are never comfortable. But that's not the point of the chairs.
My first application to The Alligator wasn’t for a reporter position — it was for senior news director, a role reserved for previous Alligator staff, unbeknownst to me. I ended up as the university news assistant reporter. Two weeks in, my editor, Alissa Gary, called me late at night to tell me I'd made the front page. The rush of those words was an adrenaline high better than any EDM festival or roller coaster ever offered.
That Spring 2024 semester handed me the first of many humbling truths: I knew almost nothing. But I was exactly where I needed to be. And I was looking forward to covering my community, sitting in the many uncomfortable chairs that followed.
Claire Grunewald — thank you for taking a chance on the overly passionate, albeit naive, child I was. I didn’t even realize the opportunity you provided me until I couldn’t get enough of it.
Alissa Gary — you saw something in me that I didn’t even see in myself. You believed in me through it all. I will never forget your support, even for my crazy article ideas.
I loved being a reporter for The Alligator enough to stay without a break — through three semesters on metro’s K-12 education beat.
The uncomfortable chair became the back pew of a school board chamber, every other Tuesday. I walked dismissal routes with students. I tore through public school policy. My work was used as legal evidence in a state investigation. I covered a superintendent's firing.
I wore that beat like a Girl Scout badge. If given another chance, I'd sit in every one of those chairs again.
The K-12 beat taught me many humbling truths, too: The people most affected by policy decisions are almost never in the room where they're made. My job was to close that distance. And showing up consistently — to the same board, the same beat, the same community — earned me things no single story ever could.
Then came Summer 2025, and the metro editor chair — The Alligator's own conference room every Sunday — live editing with a desk that shrank from five reporters to two. We covered the world anyway. Logan McBride — my kid. Thank you for trusting me through the chaos, the protest coverage and the zombie outbreak. Keep contextualizing.
Editing brought its own humbling truths: You cannot teach someone to care. You can only create conditions where caring is possible. You learn how to take feedback the moment you have to give it. Every note you write on someone else's copy is a mirror.
Bailey Diem — you are my rock. My pookie bear. My safe space. The embodiment of “editor knows best.” I learn from you each time I get the privilege of having your eyes on a draft. You’ve inspired me countless times. I cannot wait to see you take on the editor-in-chief position this summer.
Delia Rose Sauer — you beautiful soul. I loved laughing, crying and growing with you that summer. The car rides kept me sane. Never stop being who you are.
Zoey Thomas and Megan Howard — my Caesar salad and banana bread lovers. There’s something really special about growing together while leading one of the largest student newspapers in the country. Here’s to all the inside jokes no one else will ever understand. Thanks for slowly going crazy with me.
I’ll save you the details of the few dusty rooms The Alligator calls home. Those memories belong to the people who earn them — for those who get the privilege of smelling the tart ink of a warm, hot-off-the-press paper at the end of each semester.
The chairs were never comfortable. But that’s the whole point.
Sara-James Ranta was the Spring 2026 Digital Managing Editor.
Sara-James Ranta is a UF journalism senior, minoring in sociology of social justice and policy, and The Alligator's Spring 2026 digital managing editor. She previously worked as The Alligator's metro editor, K-12 education reporter and university reporter. In her free time, SJ is watching a new show, listening to EDM or discussing Star Wars.
