When I first moved down here to Texas, all I had was what fit into my car. I slept on an air mattress for three months. My main pieces of furniture were a card table and a camping chair. My studio apartment – which I still live in – had just a mini-fridge. It was hot.

I had no idea what to expect what I got to Plainview, but I was excited about the opportunity. It was a new job, sure, but joining the Plainview Herald was a big move on many levels. I knew it was going to be a different experience, but I didn’t know how different, or just how rewarding my experience would be.

Fast forward about 19 months and it’s time for me to take another road trip, start another adventure.

For those who are not on social media, last week I officially accepted a position with the Lubbock Avalanche-Journal and Lone Star Varsity. This is my final week with the Herald.

If this sounds oddly familiar, it’s because you remember Alexis Cubit, the Plainview Herald sports editor I replaced, making a similar career move.

Alexis has since moved on to bigger things out East, and there were many that thought when she left the A-J this past spring that I was going to be the one to replace her there. I actually had several people ask me, ‘So, when are you going to Lubbock?” It’s not to say that I didn’t consider the move at that time – I did, but it was a very brief consideration. It was the same mentality I had when another job opportunity was presented last winter. I listened and thought hard about it, but in both instances, I felt I still had more to do with the Herald.

In all honesty, the reason I didn’t make the jump those first two times was that I loved Plainview. I’ve loved my time here more than I ever thought I would. I enjoyed what I was doing with the Herald, the open landscape I had to tell stories in the area that Lubbock and Amarillo touch ever so slightly. It felt like my territory and the coaches, players and communities embraced me as if I was their guy.

Ellysa Harris hired me without ever meeting me, took a shot on a random guy that offered to move across the country and see if it would work out. We even kept it relatively open-ended where if it wasn’t going well, I had the option to bolt. Not only did it work it, it worked better than either of us could’ve anticipated.

We bicker like siblings, give each other sassy attitude and go back-and-forth on many things. But when push came to shove, we formed a great partnership. She was my sounding board, the editor I hated to have look over my overly-long feature stories that she’d take great pride in dissecting, the kind of boss every employee hopes to have and the kind of friend every person deserves to have.

I’ve grown so much in my time here in Plainview that the person I was when I arrived and the person I am now are night and day. Like many people in their 20s, I didn’t really know who I was. I always thought I did, but it wasn’t until I got here that I started to really shape myself as an individual. I’ve grown to love who I am as a person and as a writer. Ellysa and all of you – readers, social media followers, players, coaches and fans – have played a monumental role in that. For that, I thank you.

There’s so many things I got to experience in the past 2-1/2 years that it’s hard to pinpoint them all. My first big project was the Flying Queens Hall of Fame story series. That morphed into what became my summertime project series of revisiting Plainview and area legends that I’ve enjoyed doing so much.

From my first six-man football game to Texas Tech vs. Kentucky to the Lady Bulldogs’ run to the region championship game, so much has happened in my time with the Herald that, quite frankly, I don’t even remember it all. It’s been a whirlwind experience I’ll forever cherish.

Full disclosure: I wasn’t going to write this. Ellysa more-or-less forced me to. I didn’t want to write it because I didn’t want to make it about me. It’s the reason I don’t run my headshot with columns I write (I finally caved on this one). I’m not afraid to let you in on my emotions and psyche, as evidenced by some of those columns. I mainly didn’t want to write it because when it became clear my time with the Herald was coming to a close, I unexpectedly got emotional.

I had zero emotions leaving my previous job in South Dakota because I walked out miserable, broke and in need of a change. I spent seven years at Subway and just stopped going home for the summer, so that was easy. The only “jobs” I got emotional about seeing come to a close were when my high school and college basketball managerial careers wrapped up. Those hit me the most because I enjoyed them so much. They were passion projects, things that, while time-consuming and difficult to do at times, made me who I am. The Herald shares the characteristic.

I am who I am because of the Plainview Herald. I got this job with the A-J because of what I did with the Herald. I didn’t always enjoy every aspect of this job – putting 2,000 miles on my car to cover the basketball playoffs was certainly a drag at times – but overall, it’s been a blast.

I’ll still be around. My new job will have me covering a little bit of everything in the Amarillo and Lubbock territories, which will include the Plainview area. I hope you’ll come along with me for this new journey, and I hope you support Ellysa, everything she does for the Herald – seriously, it’s kind of insane the amount of work she does every day – and the Herald itself.

Thanks for the memories, Plainview. And to steal a line from Alexis’ final column: it’s not goodbye – but see you around.  

Nathan Giese is Plainview's newest sports reporter.