So this is it.

It's finally here. The last issue of yet another long year in the sometimes tumultuous, often trying, occasionally frustrating but always rewarding life of a student newspaper. We end it here, as yet another editor and yet another group of staffers commits to the dusty, yellowing archives their small but impressive contribution to campus history's slow progress.

Staffers such as Joe Harris, who stepped in during a difficult time to do an even more difficult job. Joe's unwavering and occasionally terrifying enthusiasm for his work (MY LEAD!!! WHAT DID YOU DO TO MY LEAD????!!!!) has breathed life into a management team (and an editor) when it was needed most. May Joe, who was punished for his good work by being elected to my job next year, have a great time leading The Current into the next millennium.

Staffers like Ashley Cook, a friend and co-worker who made a rough first semester not just bearable but often fun through sheer force of personality. Thanks, Ashley. May your future endeavors treat you better than your past bosses have at The Current.

Staffers like Pam White who's above and beyond the call of duty contributions are never publicly recognized but is nonetheless the backbone of this paper. Pam's constant encouragement and friendly ears as well as her advice on the science of management are appreciated beyond words. Without her guidance through the odd universe of purchase orders, IDOs and encumbrances that make up the world of campus finance we would have been lost and none of us would have gotten paid.

Thanks to Judi Linville, taker of Sunday night phone calls and newly-named MCMA advisor of the year, an honor that hardly does her justice. Her always accessible, but hands-off style has defined what it means to be part of a student-run newspaper. Judi can take pride in the fact that The Current could run without her though the product (to say nothing of the editor's mental state) would be far, far worse for her absence.

Thanks to Stephanie Platt, who has to rank as one of the most driven and enthusiastic individuals I've ever met. Stephanie's incredible front page photos have conveyed the stories of this campus better than anything us idiot writers could hope to achieve in the most well-worded of articles. The fact that Stephanie has run two divisions of this paper, with almost no paid help, says volumes of her character. The fact that she has run them well says more than I could put on this page.

Thanks to ad man extrordinare Tom Wombacher, who's even-keeled good cheer has sustained us through the best and the worst of weeks. (YOU STILL CAN'T BEAT ME AT MAELSTROM, MAN.)

Personal thanks are also due his partner in crime Mary Lindsley, a great friend and excellent employee without who's support and friendship, I never would have made it through my term as news editor. Talented, dedicated and possessing of a work ethic unlike any I've ever seen, Mary is a joy to manage and a pleasure to supervise to say nothing of being one of the better people I've ever run across. Yes, Mary, you do have a soul. (Me, I'm not so sure about.) May you get all the happiness due you in life or at least Brad Pitt's phone number. (But if he doesn't call, it's his loss.)

Thanks should also be heaped upon so many others: to Amy Lombardo, whose columns have so often outdone mine; to the web boys Jeremy Pratte and Josh Renaud who have turned an average internet site into a piece of HTML wizardry any organization would be proud to call their own; to Erin Stremmel, for seeing me at my worst on Sunday and still coming back the next week; to Ken Dunkin, the staff historian who will be giving ulcers to his sixth editor next year; to Marty Johnson (the check is in the mail); to Anne Porter, Sue Britt, Owais Karamat, Jason Lovera, Cory Blackwood, Catherine Marquis-Homeyer, Dave Kinworthy, Lisa Pettis, Kevin Buckley, Shavon Perkins ... and a crop of volunteers too numerous to name and too important to forget.

It has been a year of great people to know, great stories to tell and great memories to cherish. Just as it has been for more than three decades of Current staffers whose tradition we uphold. For in the end, my friends, we are only links in a chain, taking pride in our bit of posterity, our piece of the present turned past, recording history, by the seat of our pants, in grainy black-and-white, one issue at a time.