I am the Charter!

The Maelstrom is making great strides this year and the community of Baldwin-Wallace College would be wise to don their water wings, lest they drown in our massive and beastly wake.

Five years ago, a humble little group of hyperintelligent and progressive students at Baldwin-Wallace got together and felt dissatisfied with the available campus media. Back then, we were a one-paper college. We had the Exponent, a by-the-book campus newspaper with little to say. The Exponent was bad back then. It's changed since, but more about this later.

So these like-minded kids decided that it would be cool to start an underground newspaper. And just like that, it happened. Using only Microsoft Word and some pilfered office supplies, a renegade group of would-be journalists began to serve up a subversive and satirical bi-weekly magazine that kept students laughing and thinking in ways that no other campus newspaper had. This was a different sort of magazine. It was edgy but it hated being called edgy. It was different but it prided itself on uniting all of the college's bizarre subcultures.

When I was a freshman, I joined up with the Maelstrom. After nervously submitting two writing samples to the editor-in-chief, I was embraced as the youngest staff writer in their history (brief as that history was, I was proud of this feat.) My first story made it onto the front page of the year's debut issue. Ever since, I've been devoted to this publication.

Last year as a sophomore I stepped up as co-editor-in-chief with a very capable partner. I didn't want to see this thing die but it was clear that the dynamics would soon be changing drastically. Four of our strongest staff writers were seniors and they were all set to graduate. And without funding, the only way to recruit new writers would be to beg around campus. It slowly became apparent that we might need to reconsider our place on campus. Can the underground sustain us forever? Will we have to sell out? Will our demographics change? Do any of us know how to manage a budget?

For the Maelstrom to live, we need to become legitimate. And so, today I say with no hesitation, that the Maelstrom is now an official club at Baldwin-Wallace College. I'm proud of this. I'm proud because I was able to sustain something that was created by people who came before me and now it has a chance of becoming a legacy. Even after I graduate, the Maelstrom will rave on if all goes well.

I hung my first club poster in the student Union yesterday with a fellow Maelstromite. He's my friend. Everyone who writes for Maelstrom is my friend. Everyone who reads Maelstrom is my friend.

I'm not afraid of being a sell-out anymore. It's more important to me that as many people as possible are able to get in touch with the Maelstrom and become a part of it. Our ideals aren't changing. We're still a little elitist. We're still going to be irreverent. We're still going to print really offensive advice columns and declare "victory in Iraq!" on April Fool's Day. That's who we are.

I think as an officially sanctioned club we get to nominate people from our group for homecoming court. So the minute I get to ride around downtown Berea in a tiara on the back of a float, you can talk to me about selling out. Until then, I have new business to attend to.