“Dear Computer.  Why can’t you ever stop being annoying and just do what I want? I hate you.  Love, Patrick.”  These are the first words that I heard the first time I sat down in the computer lab as an editor for the Announcer, and these words remain among my favorite words that Patrick LeBeau has ever said.  I did not realize it at the time, but that “letter” to the computer was probably in all of the editors’ heads at that moment. Those words basically described the week of layout and became my personal motto after I decided that I hated all technology after dealing with it in the Naz computer lab for hours on end.  Yep, this was the experience of all Announcer editors, and I would not have traded it for anything.

I should probably start at the beginning.  Hi, I am Amy Zasadzinski.  I am 17 years old, I prefer Smucker’s peanut butter to Jiff, I have an affinity for great diction and poetry, I am not a fan of anything that has to do with automobile transportation, apparently my mannerisms and my laugh are quite distinguishable, Harry Potter and smiling are my favorite, and I became a writer for the Announcer sophomore year.   I began with the short 250 word articles, but those days were short lived once Carrie Turek, the editor in chief at the time, realized I could actually write and turn in articles. I was soon assigned the big and important 500-600 word articles.  What a rush.  I still remember my first article assignment.  Ahh yes, 550 words about the new Green Committee.  Quite prestigious if you ask me. I loved seeing my articles in the paper.  I reverted back to child-like tendencies, running the paper up to my mom and dad and showing them my articles that got big sections all to themselves.  It made my dad proud, because he too wrote for the newspaper.  He also won the spelling bee at his school, but I guess I failed him there, so this article gig was great!  When Ms. Giancarlo, the Announcer moderator, asked me to become an editor, I excitedly accepted.  That decision changed my high school career forever.

Junior year.  Jen Smigielski was editor and chief and I was ready to really contribute to the paper.  My first day of editing did not go so well, however.  I did not know how to work the program on the computer that allowed us to layout the paper, and apparently everyone was either too busy or too clueless to help me.  Thank God for Patrick and Zach Lorkiewicz ; they showed me the ropes and eventually I was able to construct pages of the paper with pictures and everything.  Then the fun began.  I did not really know the senior editors that well, being one of four junior editors, but I eventually began to talk with all of them and we all became friends.  Miles Dobis and I started a club in which we shared our favorite quotes from the “Stephon” skits in the show Saturday Night Live.  Will Stauffer would always give me Dum Dum suckers, great advice about how to survive Nazareth and humorous advice on how to deal with specific individuals that cause strife in the lives of many.  I also made a super hero theme song for him in my head that played whenever he came to help someone with their computer and save the day, but he never knew that.  Sara Maslar-Donar and Mary Muscarello always filled me in on the drama around Naz and they were always there when I needed help.  Jen was basically an angel sent from heaven.  She did so much for the paper, taught me great tips, confided her aggravations in me and gave the newspaper life.  We could not have done it without her.  Matt Steinbrenner was the quiet one of the group, but he was always so nice and was ready to accept any task that Jen assigned him.  Finally, my two partners in crime were Mike Mossing and Chris Crisanti.  We somehow managed to get stuff done, despite the intense rounds of the Wikipedia game, the calculator attacks, insult trains, stealing each other’s “office spaces”, laughing hysterically at weird pictures we found on the internet and the consistent mooching of any food that I had.  Those weeks of layout where we stayed at school until 6:30pm are some of the best memories I have of high school, putting aside the arbitrary shutting down of the computers, the lost templates, the stress of editing the articles on time, the jam packed work loads and the monotonous organizing of every page of the paper of course.

This year, Patrick, Zach, Clement Wink, Brenna Conroy, Bridget Coleman and I became the head honchos and the newspaper process changed dramatically.   Ms. Radogno became our new moderator and the Announcer matched up with its rival the Tribune and became an online paper.  The online program eliminates the stress and lays out everything for us, so all we have to do is upload the articles and pictures.  Wow, I never thought I would see the day!  Although there were no weeks of layout, we editors still had fun anyway.  Zach mastered the art of the cheesy PA announcements, Pat and I have had many “hashtag” text conversations and we all have had a good time thinking of new additions to the paper that could be made now that it is online.  I am so happy that I had such an awesome team to work with this year and I hope that the paper continues to flourish in the coming years.

I never really thought this day would come, the day I would have to write my reflection and say goodbye to the Announcer.  Being on the newspaper staff has really been beneficial to me, because it gave me a chance to creatively express myself, learn about current issues, and experience a different type of writing.  I will never forget the memories I have made through working for the Announcer and I hope that I helped make a few memories for the younger classmen like the class of 2011 did for me.  It has been a wild ride, but Ms. Giancarlo always said, “Avoid old news!”, and at this point my presence on the Announcer staff is definitely old news.  Oh well, you know what they say, “out with the old, in with the new—spaper”.  Peace out Naz, you will always be in my heart and soul.