Let me be honest, when I was a wide-eyed freshman in the fall of 2017, I had no idea what The Oswegonian would be like. If then Editor‑in‑Chief Cole Parzych, who is now a close friend, told me that I would be sitting in his shoes my senior year, I probably would have laughed. Hard.

But, on that same token, if someone told me that the end of my junior year and beginning of senior year were going to be ruined by this thing called “COVID-19,” I would have laughed again. 

So, I guess the moral of that story is to always expect the unexpected. Or at least enter it with some positivity.

When I was elected as Editor‑in‑Chief in March, I honestly thought this pandemic would be over by the time August rolled around. Managing Editor Matt Watling and I would have a “normal” semester. We could close out our four-year endeavors with The Oswegonian on top, etching our names into this organization’s long and storied history. 

The realization that this year would, indeed, not be normal quickly set in around July.   Watling and I made numerous changes to how our paper would operate, especially since we do not have complete access to our newsroom in the Marano Campus Center.

This year has been about major changes in personal lives. From COVID-19, where we learned that being six feet apart from those you love feels awful and that the way we treat every human being needs to change. It is easy to say this year has not been, what most would think is, “normal.” And this makes us excited to innovate.

With what our editors have planned for this semester­­—new and exciting ideas to revamp our newspaper—our paper will not be normal, continuing the trend of how this year has been going. Different story ideas will be explored; possibly ones that The Oswegonian has not seen printed. 

In our 86th year of operation, we will be adapting to change, just like everyone else has these last several months. As we always have, however, we will bring the best possible coverage in print every—for at least this semester—other Friday, and all the time on our website, oswegonian.com. From local news, to sports features, different editorials and reviews of music, movies and TV shows, we strive to be your No. 1 source at Oswego State.

British writer Alan Watts once said, “The only way to make sense out of change is to plunge into it, move with it, and join the dance.” The Oswegonian has joined the dance of 2020—and we will be with you the entire way.