The Foghorn has consumed my life for the past year and a half that I have served as editor in chief.
From late nights in the office and crashing on the couch to Thursday afternoon strategy sessions with my team of editors I have learned a lot about teamwork, leadership and dedication and I have loved every minute of it.
What started as a casual interest my freshman year when I joined as a staff photographer blossomed into a full-time commitment that I would call the most significant accomplishment of my entire college career.
Through my tenure at the Foghorn and here at USF, and with the help of fellow editors and friends, I have grown more as a student and as a human being than I ever thought possible.
At the Foghorn, I am surrounded by peers who challenge me and stimulate my intellectual curiosity, and together we strive to make the paper as good as it can be, bonded by a genuine desire to create a product that will be enjoyed by the USF community. To this end we live and die by the praise and criticism we receive from our readers and from our faculty advisor, Prof. Teresa Moore, whom we love and respect and whose leadership and sacrifices on our behalf do not go unnoticed or unappreciated.
This past year and a half under my watch has not been without mistakes and missteps, but we have found our footing and are making vast strides at improving the quality of the print newspaper and online Web site.
In the fall of 2008, through the efforts of Online Manager Michael Villasenor, we released a vastly expanded and improved Web site that rivals that of any other college newspaper.
We have also worked tirelessly to improve the quality of writing and design of the print edition, and our work has not gone unnoticed.
Everywhere I go on campus, professors and administrators stop to tell me how much they appreciate our work and have enjoyed reading the paper this year. And just a few days ago, Fr. Privett told our faculty advisor that this year the Foghorn is the best it has been in his nine years as president.
For me this praise is worth all the sleepless nights, absent social life and last-minute homework. However, as I pass the torch to a younger generation of Foghorn staffers there is still much to be done. The paper is far from perfect and I challenge them to use what we have built here together to continue to improve the quality of their work.
The Foghorn staff who served under me have been hard workers and loyal teammates and I am fully confident that they are up to this challenge.
I am excited that my current second-in-command, Laura Plantholt, will have the opportunity to lead as editor in chief next year and am thankful that she will have the same experienced team to back her up that I did.
Being a Foghorn editor is a job that never ends; there is always news to cover and interviews to conduct and I have been impressed by how wholly our editors have embraced this endeavour.
Our freshmen-rookies, Chief Copy Editor Dani Ricci-Tam and Co-Production Manager Brenna McCallick have contributed an incredible amount this year and are far more involved in the Foghorn than I was when I was a freshman. They are rising stars who I am sure will grow into strong editors who will one day lead this organization.
Laura and the rest of the staff, I am proud of the work we have done this year and am excited about what you will accomplish in the future. I hope you take this organization we all hold so dear to even greater heights.
Sometime in the not-too-distant future I will look back on my years at USF and time spent at the Foghorn and shed a tear for this remarkable journey I was fortunate enough to take part in, but for now nostalgia will have to wait, as there is editing to be done and papers to distribute.
Thank you to Prof. Moore, Laura and the rest of the Foghorn staff, to my wonderful economics professors who always seemed to be slightly bewildered by my unusual combination of interests and to USF and the USF community for the incredible experience I have had here on the Hilltop.
I am scared about the future and the uncertainty of post-college life but confident that at USF I received the most enriching college experience I possibly could have.
Sincerely,
Hunter Patterson
Editor in Chief
San Francisco Foghorn
