In the first editorial of every volume, The Viking Vanguard sets a number of goals for our publication to meet within the year. This year, we strived to create a nuanced brand of professional journalism, reflect the culture of our community to a high standard and ensured all content we publish will be carefully reviewed by student editors to ensure the highest quality of work for our audience.  

Now, as we come to the final issue of Vol. 112, it can safely be said that The Viking Vanguard has met all of its goals set at the beginning of the year.  

In creating a nuanced brand of professional journalism, we have covered stories ranging from the insightful advice from alumni, reporting on safety concerns such as break-ins and stolen cars from the student parking lot to reviewing Taylor Swift albums and giving each grade a breakdown of what they need to know, what they want to know and what they should know. This mirrors the stories covered by national and international news sources, while keeping our coverage local to the students and community surrounding Puyallup High School.  

Another goal we met was to reflect the culture of our community to a high standard. Through our Hidden Gems series, student profiles and stories with figures of the community, we have revealed the history and culture of Puyallup. In combination with ensuring our interviews are conducted professionally and interviewees are quoted correctly, we are meeting this goal by both reflecting the cultures within our community and holding a high standard.  

Our final promise was that all work published by The Viking Vanguard will be reviewed and edited by student editors. This has held true for many years in Washington state student journalism, as the New Voices law signed by Gov. Jay Inslee in 2018, protecting the rights of student journalists to not be censored by school officials. To comply with this, we have our stories go through an editing spreadsheet, where stories are seen by three student editors and an adviser.  

This has been The Viking Vanguard’s senior editorial board (Maddy Weaver, JoAnn Laning, Katelyn Ervin and Reagan Jones) for Vol. 112, signing off.