In response to the March 14 column, Letter from the editor: It’s been a privilege.

To The Feather,

I include you in that greeting if you write for the paper, if you advise the paper, if you edit the paper, take photos, draw cartoons, shoot videos, design the website, leave a comment, change the top five, follow on Twitter, wander through the computer lab, link on your Facebook. You are all The Feather.

I want to tell you that I’m not ashamed. I don’t think you’ve fallen off the bandwagon and I don’t think this is the end. I don’t think the glory days are over and I don’t think all your work was for nothing. Nope. No chance.

I think this is going to show up in your senior column and in your college application essays, if you’re not already done. I think you’re going to reflect and say, “wow, that sucked.” And then you’ll remember how you dusted yourselves off and made the paper rise above your previous expectations in ways you never imaged. I know it’s possible.

I’ve been there before — I’ve lost — and I know how you feel. But that determination that comes from losing is one of the most powerful things in the world. And I have a ridiculous amount of faith in you, and I’m really not just saying that.

Now, to Austin.

Austin, if we lived in a cartoon world, you would be my nemesis. You always have been. You peeked over my shoulder and tsked and threatened me and made me squirm and made me growl silently in my throat more times than I can count. Actually I think nemesis is really the only appropriate word.

And, that being said, I think I have the best nemesis the world has ever seen, cartoon or otherwise. You have affected me in more ways than I’d like to think about and have made me much, much better.

You have grown from a curmudgeonly and AP-Stylebook-swinging freshman into an incredible leader who has filled the shoes of his intelligence and transcended its barriers — you are much more than smart. You are wise and very very human.

With that said, Mr. Nemesis, I have only one word for you, in light of everything that’s happened, weighing the bad and good and weird:

congratulations.

SQ

Suzanna Quiring, ’10, is the former editor-in-chief of The Feather. She is currently studying at Whitworth University in Spokane, WA.

For more letters to the editor, read the March 8 submission, LETTER: Thanks Feather for outstanding coverage.

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