Abigail Tetzlaff, Managing Editor

Well, folks, this is it. I had no idea four years ago that “The Echo” would become such an integral part of my life. In fact, it took me four weeks my first year and convincing from the editor-in-chief to find courage enough to write my first article.

Since then, though, working on this newspaper has never felt like a job or another leadership position. More than anything else, “The Echo” has given me a voice and taught me how to use it. In many articles over the years I lauded good work, and in others I asked our faculty, our administrators and our institution to do better. I learned that both are acceptable as long as I provided sufficient evidence for my claims, and it became important that I could defend my stance outside the pages of the paper.

“The Echo” has given me more than just professional experience, though. Over these four years I have gotten to meet some extremely talented writers who are also extraordinary humans –– they are what made writing so worth it. This last year especially, I have found particular joy in our Friday staff meetings. The Echo office became a place to joke and laugh about Ryan’s misspellings, but I always felt like both our editors and writers, underneath the laughter, were all driven by a need to write pieces that were of interest and important to our readers. That desire to write what matters made all the difference, and it made me love our newspaper so much more.

And so this is goodbye. Thank you to the writers and editors for your undying energy, and to you readers for sticking with us. I couldn’t imagine my time at Augsburg without “The Echo.” May there be many more joke issues in its future.

This article first appeared in the Friday, April 20 edition of The Echo.