Dear Reader: Rising to the Challenge

Each month when you pick up your magazine, it has already been through hours and hours of editing and proofing. A stable of crack editors pour over the pages looking for a stray comma, a misplaced adverb, or an extra space between words in a photo credit. Yes, we strive for that level of accuracy. 

At the head of our stable is Sandy Howison. When she retired at the end of this past year, Sandy had worked on St. Anthony Messenger for over 40 years, starting as a full-time employee and then transitioning to a part-time contractor after the birth of her children. 

But to those of us on staff, she has always been more than a contractor; she is a fellow staff member. She has raised the bar for all of us. Every time we thought we had it perfect, she would catch something else that none of us had seen. She knows this magazine inside and out—our style, our history, all of it. 

It has been said that all good things must come to an end. That certainly doesn’t make it any easier, though. That is why it was so difficult for the staff of this magazine to say goodbye to one of our key pieces. We will now rise to the challenge of carrying on her tradition of pinpoint accuracy for you, our readers.