This Wednesday, most of The Chart’s staff will be leaving the state for the annual Associated Collegiate Press convention in Chicago.

The reason we are going to this conference is to ensure that our student journalists continue to learn and grow as so that they can better serve our campus community.

We realize that there are things we may miss. 

Mistakes are made. But this newspaper is our homework. 

We love what we do and we want to do our job as well as we possibly can. Because Missouri Southern deserves it.

The students deserve a campus newspaper  they can enjoy reading, but also one that informs them.

The faculty and administration deserve a paper that portrays them and their concerns fairly and accurately.

That’s our job. And we take it seriously.

So, we load up in cramped vans and drive long hours to strange places and load our brains with as much information as they can absorb.

We don’t want thanks or attention or hooplah, just for anyone who picks up the paper to know that we work hard to put out a quality product.

Sure, we get to miss classes and take a few days off of our normal jobs, but these trips are hardly vacations.

We’re in sessions all day and keynotes all night. Again, not a complaint. 

We’re nerds; we love this stuff.