Last week was the first Owl of the 2024 fall semester at Doane. The first Owl is always a hard one to do. There’s new staff and rust to shake off for writing, photography and graphics works. That first Owl Night, as they’re affectionately called, is usually a doozy. That first Owl Night I stayed up till 1 a.m., knee-deep in Adobe In-Design trying to get everything as right as I could; after all, it was my first Owl as the new editor in chief.
I still feel a little weird seeing that title, editor in chief. It almost seems like it is above my station. In high school my newspaper teacher wanted me to be editor in chief, but I declined the position because I felt like I didn’t have the maturity for it. I felt like I lacked the poise to be in that kind of position, overseeing an entire paper.
I felt the same way here at the Owl. Every time I moved up the ladder from staff writer to media editor to sports editor, I wondered if I was just lucking out because there wasn’t anyone to take the position. Don’t get me wrong, I write well, but I have a tendency to be slow with organizing interviews and can miss entire stories just from sheer forgetfulness. My teachers have said in the past I’m a boom-or-bust student. I might be the same as a journalist.
Owl staff sitting on the inflatable chair during Club Craze.
But when Kylie Hughes graduated and said I would be the next editor in chief I almost lost my cool. I thought this was it. Finally, I’d be in a position where everyone would see that I was a fraud and not fit to run a paper. Then the first paper came out and I got so much support, feedback and general positivity that I teared up after certain days.
I guess I’m writing all of this to say I promise you I will give you my best for the Doane Owl because it means as much to me as it does to you, the reader. I’m surrounded by amazing staff, and we are poised to add a new crop of writers, photographers and graphic designers who share that same passion for journalism. Hopefully, you see some of them next week. But if you give me a little bit of grace and understanding and let me find my footing these first couple of issues, I think the Owl staff and I can make the Owl into something really special this year.
So thank you, to the people who believe in us, who believe in me and for supporting the oldest college newspaper in Nebraska. We aren’t going away any time soon.
