Newspapers are not supposed to make news; neither does anyone particularly enjoy some dude incessantly talking about himself. Well, here at The Northerner, we are about to engage in both of those taboos but only because so many important changes have come to pass in a single week that it is almost ridiculous.

Perhaps we should start with the good news about the news: The Northerner was honored with a record 26 separate awards from the Kentucky Intercollegiate Press Association (KIPA) at its annual awards breakfast in Louisville on Jan. 22. We were so thrilled because our work was being compared to the outstanding work of Class A college newspapers across the Commonwealth at colleges like the University of Kentucky, Murray State University, Western Kentucky University, the University of Louisville, Eastern Kentucky University, and Morehead State University. To even be able to have our work compared to theirs in an honor in itself, so to be able to place in several categories is even more exciting. Congratulations to all our amazing staff members from both the spring and fall 2010 semesters who have dedicated so much to make us award-worthy! Our sincerest congratulations to to all the KIPA schools who competed and won because we know how hard you work too!

In other exciting news about the news from our conference, Gayle Brown, adviser to The Northerner, was elected an officer of the KIPA organization. She is now secretary and web editor, and was elected from among all the newspaper advisers of the community colleges, colleges and universities in Kentucky. We are pretty proud of her!

Now on to the not-so-thrilling news. We have had to make a couple staff changes because Vern Hockney, our amazing Editor-in-Chief since Fall 2010 and long-time staff member, has found an important job opportunity that takes away the time required for the position.

The good news is, that due to his longstanding commitment to our newspaper and his unprecedented leadership, The Northerner has chosen to honor Vern with the position of Editor Emeritus, which means he will remain an important part of our family here at The Northerner. We are really going to miss him here and we know you are going to miss his amazing contributions, too.

While we search for a new editor-in-chief for The Northerner, I (Jesse Call), will be here to support the staff and readers in the interim. If there is anything I can do to make your experience with our newspaper better, please contact me. I can be reached at my e-mail address of callj1@nku.edu, which goes directly to my cell phone. You can also give us a call in the office at 859-572-5812.

Lastly, there is another important staffing and style change coming to The Northerner. Expect to see more feature articles soon as staff member Claire Higgins has agreed to take on the role of Features Editor for which we are overwhelmingly thankful and we anticipate you will be, too.

Keep reading (please?),
Jesse Call
Interim Editor-in-Chief