Senior Abby Wright’s final year of high school found her spending more time than ever in the small town of La Porte, Indiana. While she’d often resided there during her summers, only this year was she able to attend school from the town she grew up in and still considers home. 

Even though Abby now lives two hours, and one hundred miles, away from La Porte, and will soon be traveling even farther for college, she prioritizes driving down to visit her small town in Indiana.

“A lot of my firsts were in La Porte,” Abby explained, as she tried to pinpoint why the town means so much to her. “I took my first steps there; I learned how to blow a bubble with gum there; I learned how to walk across the gravel barefoot there; I learned how to play basketball there. I learned how to do a lot of stuff there because that’s just where I grew up, so I’m really tied there.”

Much of the draw to La Porte is the presence of Abby’s family, the people that played a massive role in her upbringing. While her young parents went to college and worked to get jobs so they could give her the best possible shot at life, she spent vast portions of time with her grandparents—her Nina and Papa. 

Abby spent the first four years of her life in their little house on a gravel alley, being raised by a village of her parents’ family and friends. 

“I feel like [my family is] all really close,” Abby said, “and it’s instilled in me that spending time with those people is really important. I like being around the people that make me feel good and being around the people that make the world vibrant and colorful, and that’s what my family is to me, and that’s what Indiana is to me.”

Indiana is home to Abby because of the people there; but outside of La Porte, she’s found home in a menagerie of places: her house, her car, her best friend’s house, her best friend’s car, Room 139/140—where Abby has spent the last four years of her life, writing for The Central Trend. Home is anywhere Abby is with the people she loves. 

She thinks it might be a “writer thing,” the way she attaches meaning and value to things and places where “maybe there isn’t any.” And she connects to these places and people with her words. 

“Anytime I feel anything, I write,” Abby said. “My notes app is just filled with ramblings. Anytime I do anything, or go anywhere, or feel anything for anything that I do, I just write. I just write down random stuff and make it into something, and I think that’s really cool. I’m really happy that I have the ability to make something out of nothing.”

Abby’s words have always been with her—ever since she learned to read—from little spiral-bound chapter books that she crafted in kindergarten to her four years on the staff of The Central Trend, two of those years as Editor-in-Chief. 

Now, her penchant for writing is leading her to another place she hopes to call home: the Newhouse School at Syracuse University where she will be majoring in Magazine News and Digital Journalism. 

With her words, she “paved a path without knowing it,” one that entwines her affinity for people with her affinity for words and will allow her to bloom in these passions. 

And Abby’s already excited to form bonds with the people she’ll meet at Syracuse—the ones she hopes to someday call home. 

“I honestly think the people will become home,” Abby said. “I’m already really close with my roommate; I’ve found a couple of people that I’m getting really close to. I’m just really excited to attach meaning to things that shouldn’t have meaning to them, you know, silly little things.”

While Syracuse may be nine hours away from Grand Rapids, and 11 from La Porte, it’s the fulfillment of dreams that she’s had since sophomore year, and she possesses all that it takes to thrive in her major—a room-brightening energy and a special presence. 

With values instilled in her from her early days in La Porte and an innate ability to find home in the people that surround her, Abby is guaranteed to change lives with her words and her connection to humanity. 

And she hopes that whenever someone impacts her life, she can find the words to tell them what they mean to her. 

“I feel like my homes are people honestly,” Abby said. “I find solace in people, and almost all of my poems and other columns are about people, whether they know it or not. I like telling people how I feel about them. I think maybe that’s why I consider myself open. Maybe I’m not open when you first get to know me, but when I love someone, I’ll tell them. I give people my love through words, so if I’m finding a home in someone, then I’ll tell them through my crappy notes app poetry.”