Emily Seppelt
For most of my time at Gustavus, my biggest personality trait has been the fact that I worked at the Weekly. Fun fact in class? I work at the Weekly! Looking for important things to share? The Weekly is hiring! (We are, by the way). Somebody invites me to go out? Sorry, I have an article to write.
Working at the Weekly has absolutely been the best experience of my undergraduate career. Throughout my four years here, I have held a position at every level of the paper and written for every section. Every Wednesday without a doubt, you could find me in the basement of Coed, and now Uhler, late into the night. When trying to write this goodbye, I realized just how many memories have been made in the little Weekly office– not only in my time on campus, but for the last 150 years. When you work at the Weekly you become a part of a long line of very stressed and very funny people who are committed to journalism at Gustavus.
I’ll always remember walking into the office in my PJ’s eating a pack of instant oatmeal, being offered a job by the (very scary and intimidating) Editor-in-Chief. Laughing until we cried at quotes we added to our quote board. Screaming in frustration together at crappy technology and writers who flaked. Frantically writing last minute articles. My experience at the Weekly has given me everything I could’ve needed and more to leave Gustavus and succeed in the real world.
I’d like to give a shout out to our staff, especially this year. Reviving a print newspaper “post-covid” in a time of dying print media was by no means an easy task, and through all the stress I am proud of the great work that we have done this year. Despite the fact that I edit the whole paper, it’s our writers, photographers, and editors who provide you with great content each week. It’s a bittersweet goodbye to depart from this newspaper that I have poured my everything into these last four years, but I can’t wait to see what the next generation of Weekly staff can do with our little newspaper here on the hill.
Jack Wiessenberger
Jack Wiessenberger has been our superb Sports Editor and resident straight male co-worker who’s added color to our chaotic and queer she/they and they/them staff. We’ve loved his Dad Energy in the office and fantastic chicken and spinach pizza recommendations. Every week, he ensures that we take a break to eat dinner, and he will be dearly missed.
Jamie Woerpel
My time at The Weekly started as an opinion writer my Sophomore year which I thought would be the end of it till a couple weeks into fall semester this year. The position of the features editor opened up and a regular to Swedish House Fika, Emily Seppelt, quickly recruited me after finding out that I had previously worked for the Weekly and am an English major. For the rest of this year I have been the editor behind writing and designing the features section. I’ve had more fun here than I ever anticipated and made a lot of friends here in the office. The Weekly has come a long way over the last four years, not only did we survive COVID we even managed to expand the Weekly. In addition to missing my housemates in Swedish house, my band mates in GWS and my classmates in both the English department and everyone in the Scandinavian Studies department, I’ll also miss making this section with all it’s pretty pictures-which only sometimes takes hours to find and edit-, writing fun articles, and hanging out with the rest of the Weekly staff.
Emily VanGorder
I went into my senior year with high hopes. I was excited to start as Editor-in-Chief of the Weekly, and I was determined to fill my last year at Gustavus with new experiences and joy.
A month later at the end of September, my mom called me one Tuesday afternoon to tell me that my dad had suffered a stroke. For the next three months, my life revolved around daily updates and FaceTime calls with my mom from the hospital as we learned more about my dad’s condition.
During this time I truly learned what it meant to be a Gustie. While I was over 700 miles away from home, alone, and worried, I also experienced such a strong outpouring of support as professors, administrators, and friends reached out to let me know that they were there for me and my family. I came to appreciate Gustavus’s dedication to community more than ever, and I am beyond fortunate to have had the support of such a wonderful group of individuals. I have worked for the Weekly for four years as a writer for our news and variety sections and as Editor-in-Chief. It has been a constant in my life and an integral part of my Gustavus experience. Coming into the office to work, eat, and laugh with the editorial staff this year was something I could always look forward to. While this year has been unconventional, it has also been the best year of my time at Gustavus.
I am beyond proud of the community we helped create and the Weekly that we will be passing on to next year’s writers, photographers, and editors. Bonding over Caf runs, cramming quotes onto the office whiteboard, and last minute technology fixes made the Weekly such a close knit and incredible group of people I am lucky to call friends.
Congrats to the Weekly’s graduating seniors, the absolute best of luck to next year’s editorial staff and team!