Exhilarating Year Comes To An End For Editor-In-Chief

On August 28, 2012, I pinned the first issue of volume 3 of The Reporter to the top of the dry erase board in our Kendall Campus newsroom.

One down, fifteen more to go, I thought.  My first accomplishment.

When I wrote my first column nearly a year ago, I was excited and terrified for the experiences that awaited me;  I honestly didn’t think I could do it.

Fourteen issues later, I’m glad to report that I made it.  Through inspiring stories, garage collapses, presidential elections, court cases, and fourteen deadlines, I am at the finish line and I can’t cross it.

It has been an exhilarating year. My first month on the job I was nearly subpoenaed after writing a story about a student who threatened to kill President Barack Obama. A couple of months later, while on the way to a conference in Daytona Beach with the entire editorial board, a garage collapsed with no one at the scene to report it except for three excellent photographers.

No one tells you how difficult being the boss will be, no one can prepare you for it. It is like having your very first child, no matter how many books you read about it, you don’t know what it’s truly like until you experience it. I can say this, though,  there is something about putting a newspaper together from scratch and then sending it out into the world that truly warms your heart.

The Reporter  has toughened me up, taught me that you can take nineteen credits, get straight A’s, and work three part-time jobs if you truly put your heart into it. It has taught me to trust my instincts, to be more compassionate and observant, and it has taught me to be a better human being.

I wish I could go back and do it all again. Meet the editors that are now my friends, come up with all the inside jokes that kept us going through late nights editing the newspaper. I wish I could re-write all my stories, and get nervous right before I hit “send” at midnight on a Friday deadline.

I’ve never been good at saying goodbye, the word doesn’t give me closure. When I look at the dry erase board and see how much we’ve accomplished as a team, I’m overwhelmed by all the great memories locked in each page of Volume 3. But like all things in life, my time has come to move on and watch from a different place.

It was a good race, thank you for the stories.

Karla Barrios served as editor-in-chief of The Reporter during the 2012-13 school year. Barrios will attend the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in the fall, majoring in Global Studies with a minor in Communications.