Dear Readers:
It doesn’t seem as if 20 years have passed since we debuted The Shocker magazine – that is, not until I started writing this message and came to realize it would take every page of this last issue to acknowledge everyone I want to thank as we shutter our WSUAA print operations and move to expand alumni communications online.
First, let me thank former WSUAA executive director Brad Beets ’87 and board president David Eads ’84/86, who were the administrators in charge when this publication launched.
Thank you, Nita Reed, for your years of diligent alumni research and mag proofing. To every single one of my WSUAA colleagues and bosses, current and past – thank you, because I’ve learned something unique and special from each of you.
I’d like to thank by name every one of the hundreds of talented writers and illustrators, graphic artists and photographers who have so enriched The Shocker through the years, but I must content myself with mentioning just a few: Bryan Masters ’83 and Cheryl Capps ’79/81, thank you both. You well know I’ve counted on your incomparable talents every step of this magazine’s journey. Jedd Beaudoin ’01, Michael Carmody, David Dinell ’05, Scott Paske, thank you for your many contributions as our editorial associates. Beaudoin, John P. Jones ’99, Kerry Jones Branine ’00, Matthew Eck ’01, Jeremy Jaso ’05, Cori Dodds ’04/06, Anna Andersen, James Love, Chandra Dickson ’05/10, April Pameticky ’06, Emily Christensen ’14, Dani Wellemeyer, Nicole Lloyd ’08/08, Brendan Kachel, Molly Walsh ’11: Goodness, we shared some unique adventures while working to put out the magazine – and I do apologize about those collateral, even “otherworldly,” duties you sometimes took on as our student assistants. Jeff Tuttle, Paul ’70 and Brandon ’00 Chauncey, our go-to photographers, thank you for the artistry of your work. Scott Dawson ’86, Richard Crowson, Wade Hampton, Dustin Parker, it has been our pleasure to carry your world-class illustrations in the pages of our magazine.
Thank you, Shocker Masthead members (See Page 3), and thank you, Joan Stibal ’86, for being my Shocker mentor, my comm teacher by example. Cheryl Wells, what a long and productive relationship the WSUAA has built with McCormick Armstrong, thanks, in no small measure to you. No other printing company has ever had such deep and varied connections with Wichita State, and it has compounded my sadness in the loss of The Shocker to learn of the closing in early March of this venerable, 118-year-old printing firm.
Most of all, I want to thank you all for the privilege of telling your Shocker stories. Through the years, together, we’ve gone on expeditions of discovery and gotten to know Shockers of just about every ilk: artists and scientists and entrepreneurs; diplomats and educators; doctors and engineers. We’ve captured alumni and university history, said goodbye to university presidents and welcomed new ones. Together, we’ve explored complex issues of note. And we’ve explored our home landscape and journeyed to places just as beautiful but far away. We have shared tragedy. And we’ve celebrated so, so many different kinds of Shocker successes.
Thanks, Shockers, for the stories.
Connie Kachel White
The Shocker editor
