By Emily Lepkowski

I started working at the Royal Purple as Assistant News Editor my Freshman year. There are a lot of things people don’t understand or know about how putting together a newspaper works, or even being a journalist for that matter.

However, I came to UW-Whitewater with nothing but my writing skills and determination, then I met Kimberly Wethal. She hardly knew me, yet knew enough that she wanted me to be her assistant. Kim taught me everything I know and I’m so grateful she acted as a journalism mentor to me.

The Royal Purple has allowed me to do some pretty amazing things these past two years. I’ll never forget the email Kim forwarded me saying ‘Here’s another peak in your journalism career, kid,” after we had won an award for our reporting piece on UW-W and the 2015-2016 state budget.

I was also fortunate enough to cover and live-tweet a Presidential debate in Milwaukee between Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders with my forever news team, S/O to Kimberly Wethal and Andrew Eppen. 

The Royal Purple really helped me develop my writing as well as my talents to take me to that next step of where I want to be. 

The hardest thing I have ever had to do was cover a celebration of life ceremony for student swimmer spencer Twining, who died in a car accident this past fall.

Trying to capture his life, while remaining composure as a journalist when everyone else around me was torn to pieces was almost impossible. I sat through that ceremony and almost felt like I knew him too. I definitely hid some tears that day.

News never stops, and we are often sleep deprived for it. However, we do it for our audiences, so thank you to those who read the Royal Purple and follow us on social media.

Another favorite story mine was the buzz for urban bee keeping here in Whitewater. I always value a good community story and that turned out to be a fun one. I’ll never forget Kim’s comments to me on that story, noting my improvement.

Managing writers as an editor is always challenging. I enjoyed this aspect of my job more than others at times, but I do love helping people. It’s been a pleasure watching my writers grow and develop throughout this semester. I thank them for their commitment because it’s a hard job to do while balancing school. 

Thanks to the entire Royal Purple staff for another great year, I wish those graduating nothing but the best in their future.

I’m blessed the Royal Purple propelled me in the way it did and I’m so excited for my road ahead in my next endeavors and adventures.