To the readers of Dakota Student, first I would like to thank you for picking up the paper that I poured my heart into for the last four years. Whether you picked up a copy, clicked a link or shared a story with us to share with the world, you have been the reason we publish each and every week.

The Dakota Student has been my home away from home since I stepped foot on this campus. The day I walked into this office and took a job as a sports writer I felt completely in over my head, I thought to myself “why would they hire me? I have ZERO experience, my writing is subpar and I had no samples,” but I’m glad they took a chance on me.

To Alex Stadnik, my Sports Editor, thank you for teaching me the newspaper writing style, tolerating me enough to edit my stories week after week and shaping me into a better writer. While I learned most of what I know now from sitting in Chuck Haga’s classes, I also contribute much of my skills to reading, reviewing and revising my stories here at Dakota Student.

Every time a new opportunity arose, I blindly accepted and quickly doubted my ability to do the job. From Sports Editor to Managing Editor to sitting here today writing this letter as the outgoing Editor in Chief, I am thankful for my blind faith in myself to try to do better.

To my predecessors Matt Eidson, Nick Sallen and Sean Cleary, you all taught me how to deal with some of the tough, interesting and spontaneous things that come my way as Editor in Chief. From big personalities to dueling opinions and even putting together an entire paper by yourself on a Sunday night at 11:30 p.m., you guys showed me that it was possible and that I’d make it out the other side eventually.

To the editors and writers who stood beside me, thank you for reading my sports stories, even if you didn’t know anything about sports. Thank you for entertaining my ideas, even the bad ones. Thank you for laughing with me and at my expense, sometimes I needed it, and thank you for being on my team, the best team I could ever imagine.

For all the oxford commas, the comma splices, run on sentences and paragraphs that were borderline unreadable. Thank you for editing beside me and understanding the importance of the AP Stylebook.

In the hundred stories I’ve written, this letter is by far the hardest one. This letter says goodbye to my home of four years, my comfort zone I grew into the writer I am today and the student I’ve learned to be here at the University of North Dakota. This is the end of a chapter that showed me it’s never too late to go back to college and chase your dreams and Dakota Student and everyone involved in my journey will always be the biggest part of it.

For the final time, thank you to the readers, the writers, the editors and all the people I met along the way.

Cheers,

Your (Former) Editor-in-Chief, Allyson Bento