Snow Day

Washington and Lee actually cancelled classes today.  I mean, cancelled.  Not a two hour delay, but a real cancellation!  We had several inches of snow, though it did not start snowing until about 7 a.m.  Morning classes were allowed because of this, so I still went to Ethics as usual, however the university closed starting at 1 p.m.

I was still in the J-School around lunch time, when the cancellation email was first sent out.  Kat, Nicole, Elliott, and I were all in the Lab preparing for this afternoon's Rockbridge Report.  We are all copy editors doubling as producers this term and knowing the J-School, we weren't sure if Rockbridge Report was actually going to be cancelled.  Prof. Luecke told Elliott that we weren't going to have it, but Nicole had already started packaging some of the J253 stories for the web.  Kat, Nicole, and I discussed the matter and realized that if we didn't produce the web site, the stories would be killed, and the reporters would lose their first articles.

Well, we couldn't have that.  We got the three 253 reporters, John, Helen, and Jane, and a 202 assistant, Queenie, in on our idea and when Luecke and Richardson showed up in the lab we told them what we had decided: we were still going to produce the web site.  They were skeptical because the roads were getting worse but we explained that none of us had to drive home because we all live downtown.  The professors were waiting for the storm to die down and roads to be cleared before they drove home, so they agreed.

It was a whirlwind of an afternoon!  Kat, Nicole, and I all produced.  I was in charge of multimedia...photos, slideshows, and extra graphics.  Kat did general organization and assignments, and Nicole actually put everything together.  Kat, John, Helen, and Queenie produced a breaking news story about the day's snow.  I took some photos around W&L and a local elementary school and made a slideshow.  I also worked on a graphic for one of John's stories, and taught Queenie and John some Photoshop basics.

We're dorks.  We know.  We didn't have to produce the web site.  Classes were cancelled.  But seriously, this is what real reporters do, right?

That's what makes us those kids.