Farewell to students saddest of all

One of my most cherished principles as a college adviser has been that this paper belongs to the students who run it.

It also serves as a guardian of trust and credibility in its service to its readers and publics.

That is why you rarely see my name at the top of a column in The Chart. My job isn't to speak, it is to help student journalists do their jobs right and to help them get better. It is my job to guard their First and Fourteenth Amendment rights. And it is my job to help them find employment when they leave this campus.

By now, most of you know I won't be back when classes resume next fall.

The University wants to make a change. That is its prerogative. My department head has requested, and I have agreed, that I stay on until mid-July to assist with the transition and complete various projects that are in progress and cannot be left hanging.

I have been here five years. In that time, The Chart has been a pretty darn fine college paper. It has regularly won state, regional and national awards for excellence. Individuals have done well, too. Alexandra Nicolas served as Missouri College Media Association president in 2008 and has worked at daily newspapers since she was a freshman. I was named the 2010 MCMA Adviser of the Year. And Chart Editor Brennan Stebbins was the 2011 MCMA Journalist of the Year. Stebbins, in fact, may be the most decorated staffer in Chart history.

And we picked up some nice little stories along the way. Ones that had impact and made a difference.

To this day, I am convinced that Nicolas' coverage of the proposed closing of the Child Development Center actually saved that treasure. There will be a nice story about the CDC in the next issue of Crossroads, the Missouri Southern alumni magazine. What once was on the chopping block is now a point of pride.

Chart editors fought hard against a University media policy that restricted access to MSSU officials. That put me in a tough spot personally, but I supported their decision.

Stebbins has been a constant heat source for my chair. But the guy is the best student reporter I have ever seen. He is also a son to me.

Stebbins and Chart Sports Editor Jordan Larimore broke the story about Korie Henry and Jared Brawner seeking a release to contact MIAA schools after they graduated with athletic eligibility remaining. That was a first-place winner, by the way. The duo also told our readers first about the hiring of former University of Kansas standout Jeff Boschee as an assistant basketball coach.

And Stebbins first told our readers about the hiring of a convicted embezzler to teach accounting. For good measure, he introduced them to the student who discovered the news.

I also take great satisfaction in the students who just took that one little Newswriting class they needed checked off their graduation paperwork. I had a philosophy that they came through my class, but never stopped being "my kids." And from what I hear back from them now, they know I meant it.

These "farewell columns" are so we can thank people, so I will mention a few. But many of you are treasured friends and family to me and to Wendy. The Chart family knows my gratitude, I hope, and will grant me the indulgence of thanking others.

I want to thank every student ever enrolled in one of my classes. I learned more from you than you ever learned from me. You kept me feeling young when circumstances were aging me rapidly.

Thank you, Glenn Coltharp for your advice. Thank you, Joey Brown, for the interns and just being you.

Thank you, Wendy McGrane, Linda Hand, Frank "Art" Pishkur, Scott Cragin, Danny Overdeer, Roger Chelf and the rest of the Festival Desperados.

Thank you to wonderful student athletes like Jordan Schultz, Elin Skei, Sam Pogue, Brandon Williams, Keanne Thomann and others that have come through my classes. You let me be a fan and a teacher. What a gift. And Demon Haire taught me about dreds, even though I am a bald man.

Go Lions.

Thanks, Lee Elliff Pound and Elisa Bryant for being my conscience and telling me when I looked "like sh*t."

Thanks Jordyn Poe, Chelsea Jones, Amber Julian and Abby Railsback for reminding me that we are all "performers" and taking me back to t when I actually was a Southern Theatre person.

Cassie Hutchinson, I will attend a NASCAR event someday. I promise.

Thank you, finally, to Wendy Ehling. My wife let me "play Chart fantasy camp" (as she has called it) for five years. But she has seen first-hand the impact I hope I have made on our graduates.

I love this school very much and I will miss it. But I will miss the students terribly. And I want to say this to Alexandra Nicolas: "I'll miss you most of all, Scarecrow."

I am proud of my students. They have done it right and they have done it well.

These past five years have been like a return to my youth for me. Even if the stories in The Chart made showing up for work each day an uncomfortable proposition, the experience has been amazing.

I might just write a book.