• the217
• Life
• Editor's Note

For those of you who are faithful readers of buzz, I thought it should be known that this issue marks the 40th week of my tenure as Editor in Chief. Now that it’s October, the end of the year and the end of my time at buzz are in sight, so ideas for what to write in this column are beginning to run dry. Please accept my deepest apologies.

I’m beginning to know how it feels to be Michael Coulter (pg. 22) or Mike Ingram (pg. 8) or sexy duo Kim Rice and Ross Wantland (pg. 19), our valued columnists who have kept their respective corners of buzz alive each week with valuable and entertaining information.

Since I began writing for buzz almost two and a half years ago, I have been impressed that the magazine actually happens every week. Since our editorial staff is comprised of exclusively students, who are thought to be notoriously irresponsible and drunk, you would think that periodically we’d get in a tight spot and you’d see a blank page here and there where someone “forgot” to turn in a story.

It turns out, however, that students are actually responsible people who are capable of professional quality work. And, thanks to the structure of this perpetual group project, this magazine is available for your perusal 51 weeks a year.

Every year buzz enters a number of state and national competitions in an attempt to beef up our resume and see how we measure up with other magazines nationwide. I’m proud to say that buzz a finalist for this year’s Associated Collegiate Press Magazine Pacemaker Award for the very first time. This award, for those of you who don’t know, is kind of a big deal. It means that we’re one of the top 15 student magazines in the country, and I can’t help but feel warm and fuzzy inside when I think about the prospect of winning. In addition to this award, our beloved Web site, the217.com, is also a finalist in the Online Pacemaker category. It looks like 2008 is our year.

Later this month, the217.com Producer Elle Destree and I will travel with other members of Illini Media Company to Kansas City to the ACP Convention and (hopefully) collect some awards. Chew on that, haters.