School boy

Welcome to this week’s Reno News & Review!

Nope, D. Brian Burghart didn’t suddenly sprout bushels of hair. The Bald One is taking a much needed vacation, leaving me, along with news editor Dennis Myers and special projects editor Ashley Hennefer, to cover the bases. And I think we’ve put together a good paper, our annual Back to School issue, complete with our Join the Pack guide for University of Nevada, Reno students.

This is a time of year, especially when working on an issue like this one, when I always wax a little nostalgic, fondly recollecting my school days. I’m a product of local schools, having graduated from Galena High in ’98 and UNR in ’03. I can’t believe it’s already almost been 10 years. I still feel like a recent graduate.

I definitely don’t look back at my school years as the best of my life, and even the best parts of those times didn’t necessarily have anything to do with my education, but there is something romantic and appealing about school for those of us who have been out of it for a few years. It’s sort of beautiful when you can measure your progress through life by simple, acheivable goals, one semester at a time. You focus on the tasks and assignments at hand, and with every class you get a little better at it. You think more clearly, develop better work habits, and retain more knowledge. It requires a lot more effort to keep that sort of disciplined, open-minded academic interest away from the ivory tower—though working at a newspaper like this one certainly helps.

Finally, on behalf of everyone at the RN&R, I’d like to congratulate our calender editor, Kelley Lang, on the birth of her third child—and first boy—Ethan, who was born on Friday, Aug 17. Congrats, Kelley!