By: Stephanie Blair
Editor-in-Chief

The past eight months have been filled with hardship for many of our students, whether it be due to the election, the tragic loss of two fellow students, the pressures of finishing a degree or other personal struggles. It’s been a hard year for many.

It’s also been a year filled with joy. Our track team went to nationals and slayed it, Alma Pachero left a legacy project that the community rallied around, Western received grants to fund essential pre-existing projects and begin new ones, millions of women found solidarity in marching together … and Bob Dylan won a Nobel Prize, I guess, so we learned that anything is possible.

My point is that as dark and strange as times may seem, they’re never so dark that you can’t find someone willing to share some light.

As Editor of The Western Journal this year, I’ve had the pleasure of delivering the good and the bad in the form of this paper each week. However, it has been our mission, as a staff, to deliver news about the students and for the students and, in doing so, I’ve seen a lot of good. America may be in turmoil, but Western is supporting itself through inclusive actions and kind-hearted community. I can’t express the pride I feel being a wolf this year nor the excitement I feel to serve as editor-in-chief next year and watch our students do incredible things all over again.

It’s easy to feel like the world is falling apart around you – I certainly do, sometimes – which makes it all the more important to stay focused on the future and only dwell on the good moments. I, myself, have taken to only posting on Facebook when something positive is happening. Admittedly, this means I only post about once a month, but it also means that when I look back and when memories pop up over the coming years I will only be reminded of the good. Lord knows I don’t need any help remembering the bad.

So, keep your head up, dear reader. Spend your summer however irresponsibly as you choose, but come back determined and ready for another year of proving exactly what ‘millennials’ can do. And congratulations to those fortunate souls who are about to graduate, I can’t wait to see more Western graduates in the world making the changes they want to see.

From all of us here at The Western Journal, until October: good night, and good luck.

Contact the author at journaleditor@wou.edu