It’s hard to ignore history at The Daily Free Press, where the names of past editors are literally etched into the walls. From the Beanpot outage of the mid-1990s to the great blizzard of 2003, 20 years of history have been scrawled, tagged and carved into the desks, chairs and faux-wood paneling.

The Free Press attic is cramped and decaying, filled with two decades of discarded dorm room equipment, futons and microwaves, boxy outdated monitors and broken printers — all covered with a fine layer of plaster dust. I spent much of last summer there, pulling out yellowed newspapers from the 1980s and ’90s and spotting familiar by-lines: Bill O’Reilly, now an infamous conservative commentator; David Barboza, a correspondent for The New York Times; Don Van Natta, Jr., a two-time Pulitzer Prize winner.

That’s the beauty of the Free Press. Right now, as I type this, there are future Pulitzer Prize winners working in my newsroom. Somebody out there will work for The New York Times. Several will work for The Globe.

For two decades, teams of scrappy but dedicated students have worked this newsroom. They’ve worked alone; no professors, no administrators, nobody to bail you out when things go wrong. The Free Press is less a newspaper than an experiment in journalism, 36 years in the making. It is an evolving classroom, where students come each night to teach each other the art of newspaper making.

I’m proud to be a part of that history. In my four years here, I’ve watched doe-eyed freshmen become hardened, skeptical reporters. I’ve laughed as normally timid staffers tear out of the office, notebook in hand, in pursuit of a car crash or house fire. These kids may not know a lede from a lead when they first walk in our door, but they leave battle-hardened reporters and warrior wordsmiths.

And somewhere amid all this teaching and learning, a newspaper is produced. This year, Free Press staffers have deftly and delicately handled everything from racially charged controversies to tragic student deaths. They’ve covered these fairly and accurately – and reported them while the news was fresh. Three times this year, Free Press headlines have launched stories into national news.

But the Free Press is not perfect, far from it. We’ve misspelled words and mangled headlines, gone overboard on headlines and misattributed quotations. We seem to have a lot of trouble with the word “waning,” which has a meaning entirely different than “wanning.”

And ultimately, as the last eyes to see the paper before it goes to print each night, every one of these mistakes is my own. But despite every misplaced modifier, missing article or misspelled headline, I feel only pride for the work my staff has done this semester.

I survived this semester, relatively unscathed, only because of the unwavering support of my editorial board and, especially, my managing editor, whose counsel and motherly concern has kept me sane through the worst, most terrifying moments of the semester. To every reporter, photographer and editor whose name appeared in this paper, I am eternally grateful.

Last night I moved my change of clothes and AP styleguide out of the editor’s office at 842 Commonwealth Ave. And like the 60-odd editors before me, I bid farewell to the strangest, most wonderful experience of my life.

Thanks for reading.

Yours,

Neal Simpson

Editor-in-Chief