Well, this is it, my last verbatim column for the rest of this school year. 

I would like to start off this column by giving a big thank you to Mr. Morrow. Thank you so much for this opportunity to have a chance to write for your newspaper and express my views about certain topics. I hope you continue having this column next school year. I would like to encourage the rest of the high-schoolers that read this column to consider writing a piece next year. You guys have opinions too, and you need to be heard.

During this school year, I have been taking a journalism class. In part of it I had to do an interview with one of my relatives, and write a piece about that person's life. I chose to do a story on my grandpa who grew up during World War II.

World War II affected many people. For Gary DeFries, who resides in Breckenridge, Colo., a lot of things changed. DeFries, who was 5 when the war started, grew up in Kansas. His dad, who was a World War I veteran, was running a truck station, and selling farm implements. He also was running the family farm.

During the recent power outage, most of the homes in Kenai, Nikiski, and Soldotna were left without power. A lot of the houses in Nikiski were left without power for two days or more.

I would like to thank all of the people who worked together quickly to get all the power back on. We were fortunate to have a generator, but there are lots of people who don't have one. That might not be such a big deal for some people who have woodstoves or some other type of backup heat, but I'm sure there are many people who were very cold during those couple days.

A while ago, I read the article about the man who owned Peninsula Small Engine Repair. He said in the article that he was going to close his shop because he wasn’t getting enough business, and his son wasn’t interested in taking on the responsibility. He said that when most people go out and buy a brand new appliance, they take it home and use it until something possibly goes wrong with it. Then, instead of taking it to get it repaired, they just throw it out and go buy a new one.