Turning the page

By: Bailey Hendricks, Editor-in-Chief

Happy Tuesday, Towson. My name is Bailey Hendricks. I’m The Towerlight’s new editor-in-chief.

When I walked into The Towerlight office August of 2016, I came in with the hope of one day having a story published.

Throughout my three years of working at The Towerlight so far, I wrote many stories for the news section, a few for the arts section and ended up starting my own column in the opinion section.

I started off as a news staff writer, writing at least one story each week, sometimes two.

Before I was on the editorial board staff, I spent my Mondays in this office copy editing pages and getting to know the staff. I have always loved the energy of being able to witness the paper coming together.

I eventually worked my way up to assistant news editor, associate news editor, news editor, senior editor, and was elected editor-in-chief Wednesday.

I began my love for working for newspapers back in elementary school. I was lucky enough that my elementary school had a newspaper club. I remember going to students and teachers with a voice recorder back in third grade (before iPhones even existed!) and interviewing teachers and classmates on the happenings of the school.

I took this love and passion to my high school paper, too, where I became editor-in-chief and helped to rebrand the newspaper with a new logo I designed, and by injecting my passion and drive into the newspaper and encouraging my classmates to do the same.

Although it has been less than a week since being elected editor, The Towerlight’s hard working staff has already proven their talent and dedication to the newspaper. The day after The Towerlight’s election, a small group of protesters visited campus which caused Towson students to counter-protest, drawing hundreds in front of the College of Fine Arts.

I’m very proud with how our staff reported on the situation.  Giving you live updates, photos and videos on our Twitter account @TheTowerlight, and having the story on the protest out that evening at thetowerlight.com. The cover story this week is an updated version of that story that I worked on alongside our talented News Editor Mary-Ellen Davis. I’m also excited to work alongside our newly-elected Senior Editor Tim Klapac who was also tweeting from the protest, our talented Photo Editor Brendan Felch whose story is featured on the cover this week, our wonderful Art Director Tori Nicholson, and our brand new Arts & Life Editor Meg Hudson who I can’t wait to see grow here at The Towerlight.

I have come a very long way since being that little elementary schooler writing news stories on my classmates and teachers. Heck — I’ve come a long way since becoming senior editor just last year. Thank you to my mom and step-dad for pushing me to go into this office, despite being so shy that day freshman year of college. Thank you to the staff I’ve gotten the honor to work with through my time at The Towerlight including former editor-in-chief Cody Boetler and Sarah Rowan for inviting me to Bill Bateman’s after that production day my freshman year. Thank you to former senior editor Jordan Cope for inspiring me and helping me realize I belong here. Thank you to former editor-in-chief Karuga Koinange, too, for supporting me through this process and believing in me.

Last, but most definitely not least, thank you so much and a BIG HAPPY 21st BIRTHDAY to my wonderful boyfriend Matt for loving and supporting me through this process of being editor (and through everything else too).

The Towerlight is an independent-student run newspaper who gets no funding from the university.

Thank you, reading this, for being a supporter of The Towerlight. Just simply picking up the paper, doing the puzzles in the paper and reading the stories helps us out a lot.

College newspapers are very important. We report on stories that would otherwise go unreported. We break news. We are here to keep you better informed citizens.

I’m very much looking forward to serving as editor-in-chief of The Towerlight as we strive to report news and serve as a voice for students, staff, and alumni of Towson University and the Towson community.

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