Invasion of Privacy: Owen Vincent

For the past three years, Owen Vincent has been an integral part of The Lamron. As for the past three semesters, we have been lucky enough to have him as our News Editor. Unfortunately, we are at the end of an era, and Vincent has chosen to step down from his position in order to dedicate more time to his studies and potential career opportunities.

Vincent, currently a junior biochemistry major with a minor in English, came to The Lamron as a freshman looking for his place on campus. “You know, freshman year I was joining as many clubs as I could to make friends [and] find out where my group was, my main role.”

Even as a STEM major, Vincent expressed that he had a love for English: “There were a lot of things in high school, a lot of other classes, that I really loved doing—mainly English. I loved my English classes in high school and I didn’t want to completely give that up when I went to college.”

Starting off at The Lamron as a writer, Vincent had to make a choice as to what kind of writing he wanted to pursue. “I went to a general meeting back when everything was on Zoom and then I did the brief talks with all the section editors and ended on News because they seemed the most desperate for writers. And nothing has changed since then.”

Quickly after he began writing for the News section, Vincent climbed the ladder and became a co-news editor, then soon after the sole News Editor for The Lamron. When asked why he decided to deepen his involvement with The Lamron, Vincent stated, “…the more I wrote, and even though we’re all on Zoom and I was interacting through group meetings and not actually talking to people, I could tell this was a little bit of my niche. It was a group of people that I wanted to be a part of. And I have to thank The Lamron for giving me some of my best friends for the last three years.”

Vincent expressed that being the News Editor came with its own unique set of challenges. “No shade to the other sections, but I do think that News [Editor] is the most difficult [section], in part because we have so few writers and I end up doing so much of the writing myself. But also, just because of the nature of the articles being extremely time sensitive and requiring credible interviews, it’s just much more of a process than other sections.”

Without Vincent in his position, the News section would not be where it is today. Throughout his three years in The Lamron, Vincent has dedicated the majority of his time to producing quality articles and keeping the section full, even if it meant he had to write four articles a week.

In addition to being one of the best news editors The Lamron has ever seen, Vincent is also an avid Spotify listener. “There’s very little of my life when I’m not consuming some kind of media, mostly music or I’ve got, you know, a movie on in the background, podcasts that I’m listening to. Always something like that.” 

Being surrounded by media has impacted Vincent’s life in many ways, but it also played a role in his choice of career path. “My end goal has always been to do forensic science for the federal government.” With his love of criminal justice and chemistry, a career in forensics just made sense. When asked what inspired this interest Vincent stated, “I think I got the itch [from] watching Criminal Minds as a kid.”

Vincent not only participates in The Lamron, but is also a part of Director of Introductory Chemistry Labs and Lecturer Barnabas Gikonyo’s biochemistry research team. “Right now, we are working to make a kind of osteo integral calcium phosphate bone cement so that the treatment for properly healing broken bones can be much less invasive, much less expensive.” Although the team hasn’t made much progress, Vincent hopes they will in the next year and a half.

Vincent concluded the interview with this wise sentiment: “I don’t believe in any sort of higher being watching over us, but I do believe that what you put out into the universe is what you will receive. I think that if you live your life with only the best intentions for yourself and others that good things will happen to me. And I try to live that every day. I try to do my best for myself and everyone around me because one day that will come back to me, and it already has.”

The members of the E-board are saddened to see the end of the “News Editor Owen Vincent” era, but we look forward to what comes from him in the future as we know he will accomplish great things. Owen, we wish you the best of luck in your endeavors.