Anna Quick did it.

To be clear, “it,” means anything and everything.

Yes, she is graduating, but let’s talk about everything she did to get here.

To me, she was my Co-Editor-in-Chief of the Decaturian, and an excellent one at that. Anna was extremely reliable and hardworking, and I knew if there was a deadline, she would meet it.

An English Professional Writing and Journalism major with an Editing minor, Quick is extremely well-rounded in the English world.

“I do too much,” Quick said.

Originally from Bement, Illinois, she opted to commute 40 minutes every day to campus to stay close to home.

“It was not fun,” she said. “I have a really old car. I call it a grandma car. It was literally my grandma’s car. She liked to break down. So, car troubles were a big thing, but also finding community on campus.”

Quick didn’t know many people on campus because she wasn’t involved in anything just yet. That all changed when sorority recruitment came around.

“I was really good friends with Gwen Klinkey, who was a senior when I was a freshman,” she said. “She was like, ‘You should go through recruitment,’ and then also Page Shields was my SEA, so it was like I kind of had to go through it. I joined, and then I had a community, so that was nice.”

Through recruitment, Quick met Beth Portman. Although it took a while, the two became extremely close friends, even though the two don’t see eye-to-eye on lots of issues.

“We weren’t the close ones in our friend group at first,” Portman said. “I was really close with her big, and I was trying to get close with my big, but we kind of meshed. We kind of didn’t, too, because we butt heads on a lot of stuff. As we kept hanging out, we did stuff together because we were in the same grade, and then junior year we really became best friends.”

Butting heads is something that Portman often embraces, but she realized that Quick oftentimes had extremely important perspectives that she could learn from.

“It’s fun to have a friend to go back and forth with,” she said. “At the end of the day, we’re still gonna be friends. At the end of the day, even if we’re both heated, I wake up the next day and knock on her door and we go get a drink or something.”

The old saying is that you shouldn’t be roommates with your best friend, but Portman and Quick flipped that saying on its head.“I literally wake up and knock on her door to see what she’s doing that day,” Portman said. “It’s so nice. Or I’ll meet her in the Writing Center sometimes. If we’re bored, she’ll just knock on my door or I’ll knock on hers. We’ll go downstairs, make food together, play the Wii, and watch movies. It’s really fun, and I’m really gonna miss that.”

When Quick isn’t at the Alpha Chi house, she can oftentimes be found in Shilling Hall preparing for class or working in the Writing Center. All of this busyness has forced her to become an extremely organized person, which she has become.

After the school day, she turns on Editor-in-Chief mode. Not only is she a Co-Editor-in-Chief for the Dec, but she also served in that role for BURST, Millikin’s student magazine.

“You have to have crazy organization skills if you’re going to do anything like that,” Quick said.

Not only did she learn organization skills, but she learned how to simply be upfront with people.

“Giving feedback was extremely helpful, because I had to give feedback to the editors, the designers, and the writers [of BURST]. I had to look them in the face and tell them where they can improve on the fly. That really prepared me for the real world.”

Dr. Julie Bates, faculty advisor for BURST, understands that Quick is ready to take on any challenge after college because of her efforts to improve the magazine.

“Anna came to me when she was getting super involved,” Bates said. “She had her sorority, she was asked to take a leadership position in Millikin Creates, and then to be Co-Editor-in-Chief of the Dec, and she was already planning to be Editor of BURST. She was like, ‘Am I taking on too much?’ I was like, ‘yes, you are, but it’s up to you if you can handle it.’”

And handle it she did, as Millikin Creates, BURST, and the Dec all had an extremely successful year with Quick playing huge roles in all three.

“That right there is an illustration of how her confidence has grown,” Bates said. “She decided she could do it all. Often, when she would come to me for guidance, all she needed me to do was listen. She knew exactly what she needed to do. She figured it all out on her own.”

If you’ve picked up a copy of BURST, you’ve seen Quick’s full creative brilliance on display.

“She was involved in designing the cover,” Bates said. “For me, it was just stepping back and being there to provide guidance, but letting her do her thing and shape it the way she wanted.”

As for the Dec, Quick also understands how valuable her time was running the paper.

“I could think about it for an hour and still not identify all the things that the Dec has helped me with,” she said. “I would say managing workload, because I have class, I’m involved in eight things, and I also had Dr. Lambert in my ear saying, ‘you have to write this, and it needs to be done tonight.’ It was already strong, but I developed an even stronger sense of urgency.”

Interestingly enough, some of the biggest growth that Quick experienced throughout college came in her social life.

“My Thursday nights are devoted to karaoke at Lock Stock & Barrel,” she said. “I go there every Thursday. It’s a great way to decompress and chill for a while. I just recently got into pool, and they have a pool table.”

Portman, of course, was the one who introduced Anna to pool.

“I also like to play video games,” Quick said. “I have a Switch Flight, and I play Zelda on it. The story is amazing.”

When the weekend hits, Quick takes every opportunity she can to visit Jason, her boyfriend.

“He joined me after Honors Convocation, and we went to karaoke after,” she said. “He’s been a constant, the constant that I needed throughout this whole college experience. A place to go home and not deal with a bunch of people. He’s taught me how to have fun and not care.”

Karaoke and pool nights were not originally a part of Quick’s daily itinerary. However, members of the Decaturian Staff, namely Sports Editor Brennan Kunstman and Copy Editor and Writer Chase Mason, helped to draw Quick out of her shell.

“Brennan and Chase are enigmas,” she said. “Them plus Beth have brought me so far out of my comfort zone. I’m doing stuff I never thought I would do, like karaoke. It’s been fun to find a group of people who aren’t in my sorority. It’s been nice to find people who like me for me and see all the hard work that I do as well.”

After college, Quick isn’t quite sure what she wants to do. She has learned an incredible amount of skills, so now she gets the incredibly difficult choice of choosing which skill to pursue in a career.

“I don’t have a definite plan,” she said. “I’m still in the process of searching, because I’m involved in so much. I am so burnt out right now. Everyone’s like, ‘Oh, I got a job,’ and I’m like, ‘You’ve had time?’ I would like to go into journalism if possible. If that’s not the route I take immediately, I’ve applied for an account manager type job. I’d basically be doing the stuff I did for Millikin Creates.”

The one thing that is certain is the fact that Quick will have success with whichever career path she decides to go down.

“I’m going to miss hanging out with her,” Portman said. “We talk about everything. [Our time is] really valuable, especially with us being from different backgrounds and different perspectives. [Quick is] super nice and super open, so I’m gonna miss that. I guess I’ll have to text her every morning now.”