On promotions

As was announced last week, I have been appointed to The Observer's editorial board as the social media editor for the 2025-2026 term. This is a position I hold in high regard, as I aim to promote the other departments of this newspaper and bring multimedia into the traditional news space here on campus. I would like to thank editor-in-chief Liam Kelly for this opportunity, viewpoint editor Liam Price for inspiring my application, as well as my colleagues on the incoming editorial board, with whom I look forward to serving alongside. Finally, I’d like to thank my family, whose support over the past semester and a half has been invaluable to my growth as a journalist and writer. 

I had never written for a newspaper before the start of last semester. My school did not have one, though I had been a podcaster and done some radio work for one of my teachers, Mr. Zamagias, whose broadcasts of local football games were likely hampered by statistical limitations. My experience with a physical newspaper was confined to the occasion when my first grade teacher, Mrs. Bollinger, used one to swat a bug off of my head. 

 The only people in my family with any journalism experience were my great grandparents. My great grandfather’s name was C. Arthur Lancaster, known to many as Soupy. He died almost 40 years ago. He was the editor of my local paper, the Cumberland Times-News and a capable newsman by all accounts. It is where he met my great grandmother, then a proofreader. Their marriage would produce seven children. Six girls (my grandmother, from On Grandparents, is their second child) and one boy. My Uncle Fred was number seven. According to the neighbors, Soupy danced down the street when he witnesses the birth of his first and only son. 

He would die during Fred’s freshman year of college in the early eighties. My mother was in the fourth grade. He suffered a “widowmaker” heart attack that killed him before he hit the floor. This was well before they could save people from them. There are stories of him putting the paper to bed in the early afternoon and my great grandmother making sure he spelled their newest child’s name correctly when he took her to be baptized. I never understood why only he went, but this is the nature of the story as it was passed to me. They have been preserved through generations by my grandparents and great grandmother, who passed almost two years ago at the age of 98. 

It is the story of my great grandfather I carry with me, and the stories we tell ourselves that determine the makeup of our lives. It is these stories that have influenced my column thus far, and they are the impetus for my creative endeavors within the tri-campus community. As apart of a wider effort to unite the campus and The Observer, I look forward to my role as a bridge between departments and the wider student body. 

The irony is that when my great grandparents were journalists, my position wasn’t even a thought in someone else’s mind. Social media has become the primary tool by which information is disseminated. I hope to bring new forms of communication to others to grow The Observer. It is an exciting time for us, just as I hope it is an exciting time for you. The reality has never been more clear: as journalism evolves, our means of communication must evolve with it.