Austin speaking:

Last Wednesday, the journalism God sent me a gift: issue one. Words cannot express how excited I am with the outcome. Last Monday’s long worknight may have been the most stressful day in my life ever, but we made it through (note: while Kristina and I were working up a sweat hard at work in the hot journalism room, Hanna was at Harry Potter World in Florida; it’s ok, though, we still love her). After we sent the paper to the printing press at the end of the worknight, each of the itty-bitty mistakes that only an editor would notice practically kept me up that night. However, each of those worries immediately diminished after I held our first issue in my hands. After years of working toward my position of editor-in-chief, I finally have something to showcase all of that effort. This year’s paper has a clear new identity (and I’m in love with it), our staff worked super hard and we learned a lot as editors-in-chief. We now have more time and experience to help us work out the little kinks that will make issue two be that much better than issue one.

Kristina speaking:

As we sat in our first block in Independent Study last Wednesday, we anticipated the arrival of our first issue. Around 8:45 a.m., the delivery man had arrived – we had finally received our first newspaper. I think we scared the delivery guy with our excitement though. Of course we were psyched to see our paper, but, in my opinion, the best part was seeing the looks on the new staff members’ faces when they saw their name in print. It reminded me of the first time I saw my article in the newspaper my freshman year. We spent the following class period distributing the paper and celebrating with cookie cake and a rave. The newbies thought we were strange for raving, but they’ll get used to it. I think it’s safe to say that everyone is so happy with the first issue. Though there were a few minor problems within the paper, I’m so proud of the staff.

Hanna speaking:

Most people take vacations during the summer. There’s no school, no homework and no stress. My parents, however, decided to schedule a vacation to Orlando, Florida in the middle of the school year. The first thing I said when they told me was “I can’t go. I’ll miss the first newspaper worknight.”

But the promise of Harry Potter World made me see the light and agree to go on a vacation that I ended up having a wonderful time on. And although we had spent all day at Universal Studios the night of long worknight, all I could think about was that I was missing the first issue of the paper.

So, if you want to know how stressful the first long worknight was, ask Kristina and Austin (see above). What I can tell you, on the other hand, is how rewarding it was to finally see all of our hard work come together. I was so proud of our first issue and, although there are things that could be improved, I’m looking forward to the rest of the year with these talented people.