And in conclusion

It’s been a long, strange trip.

This is the last editorial column I’ll ever write for the Weather Vane. For me, it marks the end of active involvement in the paper, which means that next semester, I’m going to have something I haven’t had in a long time: free time while college is in session. I have no idea what to do with it.

I’m pretty sure I never meant for the ’Vane to become such a major part of my on-campus life. Freshman year I thought that writing for the school paper might be a good diversion from Biology as Inquiry and General Chemistry, and I had been on the staff of my high school’s newspaper, anyway. I wrote exactly one real story all that first semester, a feature piece about women using the then-new Commons fitness equipment.

On the strength of that one story, co-editors Jay Monger and Aaron Yoder offered me a spot as news co-editor for the second semester of my freshman year. I took it, and signed up for the bare-bones news writing course Dick Benner teaches for Weather Vane staffers who want course credit for their work on the paper. I hit the learning curve pretty hard – Dick knows what he wants when it comes to news writing, and he’s not afraid to tell students when they don’t write what he wants. I emerged at the other end of the semester a much better writer.

I spent two more semesters editing pages, one as the only news editor, and the other as opinion editor. I think I did better on news; hard facts are a lot easier to write about than what I happen to be thinking of at any given moment, even if they take more research. After those two semesters I took a semester’s hiatus for the last Middle East cross-cultural trip.

When I returned, I called Dick to find out if any spots were still open for the spring 2003 staff – and he said that, in fact, he was looking for co-editors-in-chief. Would I like to try that? He had a likely-sounding candidate for the other co-editor, one M.J. Sharp, who at the time I knew only as Jason Garber’s weird roommate.

A year later, M.J. and I are ready to call it quits. We’ve put together 24 issues counting this one, plus two Feather Brain spoof issues. We covered some pretty significant events in the history of this little private Christian liberal arts university. With the help of some dedicated and talented staff members, we managed to introduce some advances – spot color, the ’Burg page, and the spiffy new website. I think we worked together pretty well, and I had a good time doing it. I also think – contrary to what certain of our readers may believe – that God has been with us as we did our part to shape EMU. How else could M.J. and I have managed to find rooms conveniently next door to each other two semesters running, without any advance planning?

So, are there any clubs out there looking for members?