... At the time this opportunity came up, I was a Senior at University of North Texas, and working as a Resident Assistant for the school. Taking on a task this huge was crazy, and I'd never overload myself like this today, but I'm glad I did it. When the magazine was handed to me, we had a few previously contracted articles, and a list of prior advertisers and not much else. With my assistant editor, Leslie Harvey (also no experience), we set out to put together a 48 page full color magazine that we would eventually print 100,000 copies of. (more story below).
conitnued-
Between the two of us we... (deep breath)... wrote several of the articles,
contracted for the others, laid out every page, re-established relationships
with dozens of advertisers, formed dozens of new ones, found a printer, and
went to press. This required us learning an amazing amount in a very short
time about not only the publishing industry, but also the aviation industry
as well, since part of our responsibility was to create the airport charts
and supply valuable information pilots would use to approach new
destinations.
Looking back now, even this description barely gives a hint of how much work this was and of the incredible diversity of the new tasks we had to undertake. Both of us were about 25 at the time and both had a full load of classes and full time jobs for the University while all this was going on. In a way it's inspiring to think of how we rose to the occasion.
A side story to this that I'll never forget involves my senior painting teacher, Rob Erdle, who was teaching the one course I was not able to complete my work on that semester. This was a special projects art class that was largely on my shoulders to direct and complete. Because of the huge workload I had with the magazine, I didn't finish the work and had to ask Rob for an incomplete. When he looked at the printed magazine, he said, "No. This magazine is real work, professional work. THIS will be your special projects class. And I'm giving you an A."
I'll never forget that. In the moment it happened, I felt like the guy had lifted a boulder off my shoulders and replaced it with the key to the city. He even lectured the rest of our class about the importance of grabbing opportunities and doing professional work.
For him to ignore the rules and reward me for this effort was mind blowing to me, and revealed something about wisdom and the kind of professional I desire to be.
Side story 2- another bonus of this job was that I got to make my Father a published photographer, as he took the photo that we used on the cover above!