Graduating Northerner editors: What will you miss the most about NKU?
May brings with it the sweet smell of success: pride in a job well done and relief that the school year is drawing to a close. Or is that just the aroma of cicadas in the air?
In any case, the graduating members of The Northerner’s staff welcome May with open arms. After years of hard work, we’re more than ready to spread our wings and fly.
Our departure is bittersweet, however, as we leave the safety of our Northerner cocoon, because we will be leaving much more than simply a job.
We leave our fellow staff members: friends who have shared in our triumphs and failures, our hopes and dreams. These people have become a surrogate family during our time at The Northerner, and leaving them may well be a scarier thought than swarming into the job market.
It has been an eventful semester, during which we’ve covered events such as the statewide budget crisis, university tuition increase, Ken Shields’ retirement, and Student Government Association impeachment, election and constitution issues. We’ve fine-tuned our journalistic antennae in every imaginable way during the past 14 weeks. We now leave exhausted, but proud of our successes, and better educated because of our failures.
Our experience on staff at The Northerner taught us many things: humor and friendship will get you by when you’re so exhausted that you think you can’t go on.
Criticism means that somebody is at least reading the newspaper, which makes all the stress and missed classes worth it.
And sometimes, sleep really is more important than anything else, especially after those 4 a.m deadline nights.
To the Fall 2004 staff, we impart the following: we have all the confidence in the world that you will be incredible next semester.
We’ve been fortunate enough to have worked with a group of talented journalists and good friends, and we’ll miss you.
Amanda VanBenschoten Kyle Burch Amie Vogt D.J. Carter