By Mikayla Davis,

Working for a newspaper as a managing editor was not something I ever saw myself doing. While I’ve always enjoyed writing creatively, doing research and interviewing people was never a task I found fun.

I enjoyed learning new ways to use language, though, and I thought news production would offer me a view on writing I had never experienced before. I was not wrong.

In my many years at SFCC and my shorter two years at EWU, I experienced creative writing,academic writing, and even business writing.

But journalistic writing challenged me in ways I never thought possible. I had to get rid of all the fluff and get straight to the point. I had to give the audience so much information in only a few short paragraphs.

I struggled and I enjoyed every minute of it.

Admittedly, working for The Communicator would not have been near as much fun as it was had I not met so many wonderful people.

Our advisers,Mark and Jason, always told us that our staff should be like a family. For the paper to truly work, we needed to work as a team and trust each other.

Jason would always tell horror stories about some of the drama he has witnessed in his years of teaching, but I am proud to say that while working for The Communicator I saw little of that. We talked to each other when he had problems and we were always able to pull through.

I loved watching everyone become passionate about the subjects they were writing about or the pages they designed.

I loved the way we bounced ideas around, whether they were crazy or not.

I loved the way friendships were born from nothing except the shared space of that multi-colored room.

I loved working with the student staff of The Communicator.

I would be lying if I said there weren’t times when I just wanted to crawl under my desk and hide, but the friends I made in that room were always there to help me through. I know I will remain friends with many of them, even now that I have left.

I did not plan to leave before the year was out. I wanted to stay with the staff until the very end. However, I realized that in order to afford grad school next year I needed to work more and save up. I know that I let some people down and I apologize for that. But I know that the staff is in good hands and I look forward to every issue they release this spring and the years to come.