The strings drone in the background as the trumpets sound off in a fanfare. The steady beat of the drums increase as the band crescendos into the finale. Suddenly the conductor walks off stage.

The audience covers their ears from the shrieking clash of the instruments as the percussion skips a beat and the clarinets gaze in shock at the empty podium. How could something so pretty turn into such chaos?

While this senario may not be true, it represents what is happening with the campus publication classes beginning Dec. 15. This is the reality of journalism class. After months of learning and writing, the campus newspaper has been left in the hands of the students.

Campus journalism teacher Greg Stobbe left for surgery to replace a trauma in his eye with a prosthesis on Dec. 15.

“I am excited to look normal for the first time in 40 years,” Stobbe said. “But I am nervous to have a foreign object put into my body.”

As a child, Stobbe was involved in an accident which traumatized his left eye.

The healing process will take about six weeks, leaving him unable to return to his classes.

“With Stobbe gone, it is going to be very different,” Anne Hierholzer, ’05, editor-in-chief, said. “We will have to take on responsibilities we don’t normally have to do while struggling with our own work.”

Many students step up to the challenge of responsibilities that are not usually assigned to them.

“It is going to be difficult to stay organized and have our articles in on time while all the editors are in a different period,” Brianna Stobbe, ’06, photographer, said. “We need to be able to communicate between the editors in the other class. As student reporters and editors, we do not fully realize all the work and effort he personally puts into the paper until he is actually gone and we have to do it”

Other students see this time as an opportunity to take a break from the demands the publications instructor requires.

“As a freshman, I am dependent on the upper classmen to keep me on task; when Stobbe is gone, it relieves the stress level,” Drake Olsen, ’08, staff writer, said. “It will be more difficult without his teaching style because no one can actually fill in for him.”

As Stobbe awaits anxiously to take his next step in life, many people pray for peace as they look forward to his new return.

For those who wish to send cards to Stobbe, contact Stobbe’s daughter, Brianna, at [email protected].