One hell of a year

We Say IU was the place to be in 2008 

After watching him cover the youth beat for the 2008 election, few would have initially expected Luke Russert, son of the great late Tim Russert, to end up broadcasting on Election Day from the Indiana Memorial Union.

It was certainly a welcome respite given that, for far too long, most of the media attention received by the University was focused on the NCAA violations of Kelvin Sampson.

Coming here certainly seemed like a good call for Russert. The presidential race in Indiana was decided by some 26,000 votes – a number smaller than the enrollment at IU. Given the drastic turnout on this campus, we might very well have been a deciding factor in which way Indiana’s 11 electoral votes swung.

This year has certainly been an exciting year for IU students to make and witness history. We were visited by everyone from Feist to Bill Clinton. John Edwards broke his media silence in the IU Auditorium. The president-elect himself, Barack Obama, dropped in on the Little 500 women’s race and greeted patrons of Nick’s English Hut.

Not everything that happened this year was particularly good. The IU Student Association had an election that ended in the disqualification of the party that was initially declared the winner. During the summer much of this campus was consumed by flood water. The recent economic recessions darkened the dreams of many Kelley students and made the victory lap that much more tempting.

Did we mention sports? No, we probably don’t need to go there.

This year we got to take part in the only Indiana presidential primary that might ever mean anything, we hosted a gubernatorial debate and got to help choose the next leader of the free world. Could next year possibly be as exciting?

Probably not, but we will have to wait and see. Who would have thought 2008 would feature Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton sparring in Bloomington or that Indiana would go for a Democratic candidate for the first time in 40 years?

Maybe 2009 will be the year University officials finally come up with a decent name for the Ora. L Wildermuth Intramural Center (hint: the new name should not include the word “Wildermuth”).

Maybe it will be the year we actually get a decent fall break.

Or maybe, just maybe, it will be the year Ugg boots and spandex finally go out of fashion.