There’s a sense of relief that comes with the end of the spring semester. For some reason, it’s always the second half of the year that’s always the most hectic, and I’ve always felt relieved whenever it finally comes to an end. No more online discussions on Canvas, no more research papers to write, and no more reading assignments. I’m a little extra relieved to finally finish this particular school year since it has been by far my toughest year of school to date.
It’s not that my classes were that hard or even that it was my first year taking my college classes in a classroom in Silver City, rather than on my laptop. No, it’s mostly because I had the bright idea to try and jump-start a college newspaper in a day and age where people really don’t read newspapers anymore. Well, people my age don’t really read newspapers at least.
I’d written for the Mustang the previous year, where it had more or less crashed, burned and was quickly swept under the rug and forgotten about. I was disappointed that it hadn’t worked out. I’ve always gone back and forth about what type of career I would try to have with a degree in English. Would be a journalist when I grow up, or a teacher? The Mustang seemed like it would have been a good stepping-stone for anyone trying to break into the field of professional journalism, which is getting tougher and tougher to get into in a world where anyone can have a blog. I decided that my mission would be to resurrect this dead newspaper.
Fortunately, I wasn’t the only one who still saw the untapped potential in the old school newspaper. One of the biggest advocates for getting the paper back on track was Lawrence Garcia, the former student body President, who knew that a college paper played an important role in giving the WNMU student body an identity. Another was WNMU Vice President of External Affairs, Dr. Magdaleno Manzanarez, who’d originally had high hopes for the college paper and ultimately gave me the go-ahead to try and get the Mustang started as the new Editor.
I had no idea what I’d gotten myself into. What followed was nine months of trial and error as I found myself getting a crash course in everything from marketing to web design to human resource management to bookkeeping. I barely even had time to actually edit the content we put up, and I was the editor!
Fortunately, The Mustang has an awesome support system. From the start, there was the much-appreciated support from WNMU faculty and staff members Abe Villareal, Benjamin Cline, John Gist and Christine Staley, who dealt with me and my questions and concerns on a daily basis and provided good advice and guidance whenever it was needed.
But, most importantly, it’s my fellow students who worked in the trenches with me who deserve the most credit. It’s not everyday that a strange guy pulls you aside and asks you to help him re-launch a dead newspaper, and I’m almost certain that in most cases you would politely refuse and get as far away from that strange guy as possible. Fortunately Claudie “CP” Thompson, Vincente Partido, Marissa Aguirre, Casey Dickens, Mary Lucero, Marivel Medel and Kat Quarrell decided to give it a shot. If it weren’t for them, there would be no Mustang.
So, now that this year is in the bag with 115 articles under our belt and we find ourselves with a bright new future, what’s next? After all, people actually read this thing now, we can’t just leave them hanging for a couple months while we go on vacation.
Well, I can promise that the Mustang will continue publish articles throughout the summer, though probably not as many as we would during the Fall and Spring semesters. But fewer articles mean bigger articles. One of the main goals for the Mustang now that we’ve established ourselves is to publish pieces that are a bit stronger, pieces with sharper teeth. You can only write so many articles about taco sales before the readers get bored and the writers go insane.
But for right now, The Mustang is taking a well-earned break. It’s been a very hectic but worthwhile year. This year has seen the rebirth of WNMU’s college newspaper. Mission Accomplished.
As always, thank you for supporting us. Thank you for reading our stories and sharing them either through email or on social media. It seriously means a lot. This is also my first real editorial that I’ve written and if you’ve made it this far, God bless you. They will get better, I promise.
That’s it for now, thanks for reading and I will see you in June,
Eric Lowe
Editor
Mustang Newspaper
