He lives vicariously through himself; his business card simply says, “I’ll call you”; he has won the lifetime achievement award, twice, and even Dr. Degen fears his level of intelligence.
Ok, maybe the last one isn’t true, but one thing’s for sure, Jack Durham is anything but ordinary.
The youngest of three, with an older brother in college, and one a senior at Jesuit, Jack has always had a lot to live up to. His oldest brother, once the editor in chief for The Roundup, set the standard for the Durham brothers with his writing excellence. His all time article count ranks as one of the highest, and his leadership skills were starkly impressive when he led The Roundup his senior year. Pierce Durham, his other older brother, has continued the Durham-Roundup legacy with his writing skills and dedication to the Jesuit paper as the news section editor.
Jack, faced with the impossible task of following these two scholars, took it upon himself during freshman year to join The Roundup and pursue his writing career at Jesuit. It’s not very often that freshman join The Roundup, and it’s even less common for freshman to write very many articles, but then again, Jack isn’t a common guy.
So, of course, he would deviate from the standard. Jack explains that during his freshman year, ” I didn’t start writing until spring break” but “I ended up writing 5 articles.” Even with a late start, Jack jumped to 5 articles and about 4,000 words by the end of his freshman year.
In The Roundup, writers have the opportunity to receive The Roundup tie upon writing both 10 articles and 10,000 words. Trust me, it’s not as quick as it may seem to get there. Almost halfway there and going into his sophomore year, Jack was determined to get the tie, saying, “I’d been wanting it for about 2 months” and “I didn’t realize how close I was until September of this year. ”
After seeing how close he was to the tie, Jack pushed through and attained his 10 articles and 10,000 words soon after. Not only did he write most of the articles the beginning of this school year, but Jack also made The Roundup history being the first sophomore to get the tie. It’s an incredible feat for Jack, who juggles not only his writing career, but also school and lacrosse.
Jack mentions that “it’s pretty cool” to have the tie now, especially because he got it before his older brothers. Speaking on that subject, Jack tells us that ” hopefully, I can get ahead of [Pierce] by next year.” A difficult goal to shoot for, Jack will have his hands full overshadowing his brother by his junior year.
