Austin speaking:

Another week passed, already? I keep forgetting how little time is left in the school year. It seems as though the end is never nearing as I look at my accumulating to-do list, but in all actuality, we only have two worknights left. In newspaper speak, that roughly translates to no time at all. This week, for me at least, has been crazy stressful. On top of our senior issue we are working on, we have been hard at work on our state journalism contest entries. By this time, the average newspaper editor-in-chief would probably say, “Oh, I can perfectly handle getting all my regular issue stuff and state stuff done without getting stressed out.” But this is obviously not the case for me. Although one might think that after three years I would be much better at balancing these two things, the genius in me thought it would be a good idea to enter five different carry-in categories this year (as opposed to one or two like the last two years). But we found out news on Saturday that made all the stress forgivable. I’m trying not to spoil the surprises, so I’ll let Kristina and Hanna tell you how it went.

Kristina speaking:

Austin can testify that I complained for about ten straight minutes of how much I did not want to start this blog. This probably gives you some indication to where my state of mind is right now as a senior. It’s not that I don’t want to write it, it’s just that I’m losing motivation for schoolwork; and it’s taking a toll. Saturday was our state journalism competition at the University of Kansas. We’ve been working on our state entries for a couple weeks now, and this weekend we finally saw the results. It has been tough to balance finishing up our last issue and working on our state entries, but the work has finally paid off. We won state!

Hanna speaking:

We waited to post this blog until after we found out about state. And it’s a good thing, because we got first! First, I have to give props to Kristina for placing first in two categories at state. Seriously, that’s a huge accomplishment. And even though we are all ready to graduate, I can’t imagine not having newspaper next year. This staff has become my second family, and I’m so happy that we have seen so much success this year, but I’m also happy that we’ve grown so close. I can’t imagine being in a smelly, hot, loud room with a better group of people.