As the year comes to an end, I can't help but reflect on all that has been accomplished with The Current's web page. When I applied for the position of Web Editor way back in June of 1998, I didn't exactly know what I was getting into when I was officially hired later that August.

The job description was simple: put the articles of the print version of the paper into the web page. I would go through each article and copy and paste into files on the web. It sounded easy! They asked me if there would be a time problem and I said "Oh, no. No problem! I'll be done in a few hours!"

The first night I updated the web page, I was there until past midnight. And I got there at 3:00.

One of the reasons it took so long then was that I actually typed some of the articles in and had trouble replacing smart quotes with straight quotes. I remember taking about an hour to go through the whole thing with Editor Dave while he kindly pointed each and every smart quote out (they showed up as weird symbols on the web page).

Despite this, I slowly worked out most of the kinks and was more efficient. But one thing still didn't change: all I was doing was putting the articles of the print version on the web page. It was all I was being paid to do. It was what all the previous Web Editors were paid to do and it's pretty much what they did. But I knew the whole time that it was missing something.

After returning from the convention in Kansas City, where I attended several seminars on school paper web pages, I began using images more consistently, putting every picture in the paper on the page. That took longer again, so I eventually got some help.

Josh Renaud, who was before just a news reporter, stepped in to give me a hand. I originally lobbied for another paid position, but because of budget constraints Josh had to be a volunteer. My ultimate goal was an entire web staff, which is what a lot of school papers had, but it just wasn't possible. So, Josh and I just did the work of an entire staff.

It got to the point where we weren't just putting the articles in the paper on the web page. It became much more than that. I was working for peanuts and Josh was working for absolutely nothing, but the web page, to us, meant more to us than money, especially in Josh's case. We wanted to make the page the best it could be.

Unlike previous web editors, I did more than what I was just paid to do. The money didn't matter. What mattered was producing something we could be proud of. We wanted a web page we could tell people about. "Hey, have you seen the Current's web page? It's at www..."

The web page has been much-improved over last year. There's more pictures, better layout, and more of the paper in it, like The Undercurrent, and there's features in the web page that cannot be found in the print version, like this column for instance. Our mission was to give people more of a reason to visit the web page and I think we've had success with it.

A special thanks goes to Stephanie Platt, who, like Josh, helped out with the web page for free. Not only did she do it for free, it actually cost her money! She went out and took special photo features just for the web, like at the St. Louis Zoo and Botanical Gardens. She did it purely out of the goodness of her heart. She and Josh both deserve medals for their selfless dedication to making this great web page.

Some of you may have noticed that for a while we had another helper, Greg Papuga. He was only there for a couple of issues, but he had a lot of good suggestions about the web page and may show up again next year. I have to thank him, too, despite the fact that he was only here a short time because, like Josh, he did it for free.

Now that it's the end of the year, we can only think about the future of the page. Ideally, there's no where to go but up. Hopefully, all future web editors after me, and Josh will most likely be one of them, will care about putting out a web page to be proud of, no matter what the pay is like.

Before the end of this column, I have to thank Josh more personally. I really appreciate all you've done. I couldn't have done it without you and the page couldn't have been as great as it is now without your help. Not only did you help me save time, but your HTML knowledge and design suggestions were invaluable. It's hard for anybody looking at the web page to tell what exactly what he does and what I do each issue (we're sort of lumped together) so I'll tell you so you can appreciate each of his accomplishments seperately: he took care of making sure all the pictures got online, redesigned my redesign of the redesigned "Current: Online" logo, did the sports section (which often included creating wonderful HTML tables, a lot of extra work), and, like I already mentioned, suggested a lot of useful design ideas. He actually knew more about HTML tables than I did. Kudos to you, Josh!

I'm still not certain at this point if I'm coming back next year, but whenever I leave it will probably be Josh Renaud who takes the helm. In either case, the web page is in good hands, folks! Expect to see the quality and content of the web page you see now and more next year. Joe Harris mentioned a few of the things to expect next year in his column this issue.

I will be working with Josh over the summer, including the summer issue (which never was put on the web before), but in case I don't come back next year, I'd like to say "See ya" and thank Josh, Stephanie, and Greg one last time. It's been a great year and a great page. I hope I've set a precedent with the page that will be followed and even improved upon for years to come. I'm going to move on to bigger and greater things with web design, but I'll never forget the valuable experience I had at The Current.

We really and truly did produce something we could all be proud of.