As it turns out, last year was somewhat of a test run for our website. It was brand new and we tried our best to get it up and running. But with it being created halfway through the summer, it posed some issues having solid plans in place to get content up every day.  This year, we knew what we wanted to do with it from the get-go. We decided to make an attempt at putting at least one thing up every day as well as extending our presence on Facebook and Twitter.  With all of these additions, it only seemed obvious that we have a second website “launch.” And today, Friday, Sept. 9 seemed like the perfect day to do it.

Sarah speaking:

After working on the website for months over the summer and later involving staff members this year, it is exciting to finally launch the site. Our launch is less of a start to the website than an unveiling of all of the staff’s hard work so far this year. We have school announcements, sports scores, photo galleries, news updates, Google map directions to sports and content daily. Today after promoting the site and our Twitter and Facebook pages, we hope to have a larger audience see our efforts. I hope handing out flyers and covering the football game tonight will only spread the word about the site.

Jill speaking:

So far this year, the website has been such a priority for us and it’s really working out to our advantage. I love being able to write and read stories that I otherwise wouldn’t get to, and it’s fun to see our staff getting involved in it.  Although getting a story up within hours of the event is by far the hardest thing I’ve done this year, there is no better feeling than the elation a journalist gets from being timely (nerdy, I know).  All I can say is I’m glad I have my technology savvy Sarah to work with on this stuff, because without her, my web abilities would be a hopeless mess.  We’ve worked so hard to make sure the website looks its best for tonight’s launch that we’ve even got our whole staff running around in bright yellow t-shirts (as reporter Ryan Fullerton said “looking like lemons”) advertising the website. I hope all of this hard work pays off.

Lessons of the week:

1.  It’s okay to be proud of something you put a lot of time and effort into.

2. Our staff looks mighty fine wearing neon-ish yellow t-shirts.

Lesson four of being an editor-in-chief: check.