Our Opinion: Herald summer interns will be missed

Published 9:27 am Monday, August 29, 2016

Forget April. August truly is the cruelest month.

That’s because something is sorely missing from the Herald office right now.

The last two Fridays, we’ve said goodbye to our two summer interns, Alex Smith and Jora Bothun. Or as we call them: Axe and JB. Yes, we nickname our interns.

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The two proved invaluable over the summer in our newsroom for the skills, hard work and bright personalities they brought each day.

At 19, Axe is the old pro at the summer Herald internship, only she wasn’t planning on coming back this summer. We brought her back as a part-time summer reporter to help out after reporter Jenae Hackensmith went out on a medical leave.

After three prior summers through a high school internship program, Axe essentially completed the work of a full-time reporter this summer, covering meetings, police briefings and more.

We threw her to the wolves and she did everything we asked.

In taking over Axe’s high school internship spot, JB proved a naturally talented photographer over the summer and improved her story-writing skills too.

But even more than the skills the two brought to the office, we’ll miss having the two around and are like our newsroom little sisters.

Alex returns to the University of Minnesota, where she’s a sophomore majoring in journalism. Jora is heading to the Heartland Masters Commission.

They’re two talented and vibrant young women who do Austin proud.

We thank them for their summer of hard work at the Herald.

As we say at the Herald: Our interns are better than yours. We’re only half joking.